1. Clara

2. Florina

3. The infanta Margherita

5. The infanta Francesca

6. The infanta Manola

7. The infanta Isabella

8. UTTER or Raping the Air (half-poem)

9. List of my flaws and the percentage of untreatability

10. Dayliness

11. Mia-maia and Tess-the-poetess

12. The diary of a clone-16 years, 3 months

13. Haunting deep inside you

14. Barbed-wire silences

15. Hunger strike for you

16. The cage

17. Cookie the cook

18. Lolo locomotive

19. Inside

20. The basic cell

21. Blowing Across the Table

22. Elegy for a Medical Student

23. Handicap

Clara

clara’s body was in squares

so she divided it numbered it

A5 B3 C7 the square I9

was his favorite morning

after morning he used to deposit

kisses memories whispers there

an ever growing heap of used kisses

that is to say soiled worn out depleted incapable

of getting repeated he was quite inventive

but he couldn’t give up I9

then B7 became his resting place

where he’d gather strength after some

very daring move at C5

and let’s not forget the celestial corner A1

where a crowd of angels jostled the kibitzers

dying of curiosity to see how it might come out

after the classic attack on B7

nobody seemed to be winning don’t imagine

that anything about this battle was ordinary

clara finally got in trouble when she fell in love

the squares dimmed faded disappeared

he took to stalking off in high dudgeon

at the interruption of their game she’d cry

the angels couldn’t help but laugh then finally

they themselves decided to play on clara’s body

tracing lines drawing

squares

translated by

Adam J. Sorkin and Aura Sibisan with the poet

Florina

one fine day

Florina burst into bloom

each strand of hair

on her perfect

body

some say firm

others say thrillingly soft

musical and fair

each and every strand

metamorphosed into a petal

yes a petal

in the evening Florina combs

her chrysanthemums dahlias but

you haven’t seen anything yet

you should gaze upon her hands

at the fleshy sinuous freesias reaching

mingling blooming opening wide

what fragrance

when Florina dances but

you haven’t seen anything yet

because those long legs of hers

some say like a model’s

others say

too thin and bony

like daisies

tremble side-by-side in rows

planted in the garden beds of parks

for a long time now

Florina hasn’t moved

so as not to ruin

that sister garden

her siamese twin

she stays exactly like that

neighbors come to the courtyard

passersby tourists

arrive to see her feel her smell her

so her parents sell tickets

just to look at Florina

how she stays so still

she has learned to wait

to understand the sun and the rain

to fear hail

children

young lovers who pluck

her petals and recite

she loves me

she loves me not

she loves me

it’s so pretty to see them

the young dandies the mature gentlemen
all the bachelors who line up

to smell Florina’s feet

to caress those daisies

sprouted from her thighs

to water

Florina’s flowers

with saliva sweat tears

to make an offering

of seed somewhere
maybe some different sort of

flower or something like

a flower or who knows what kind

of petaled witchery

might spring up from the warm hard

smooth sweet earth

of Florina

for a long time

Florina hasn’t moved but

old crones gypsies neighborhood gossips

swear that at the very moment

she gave up the ghost

water gushed from her mouth

water kept flowing

and an artesian well

remains right there

in the middle of the garden

Florina

translated by

Adam J. Sorkin with the poet and Jana Rotescu

The infanta Margherita

noble gentlemen oh hear my sad tale

blond margherita has been put under lock and key

shut tight in a music box its walls lined

with finest silk they nailed her foot

to the gold velvet floor

round and round she turns crying mar-ghe-ri-ta

people laugh how cute how cute

she longed to run away but they drove another nail

through her hand then chained her to the ceiling

she yearned to move freely but they crucified her

on a metal arch no longer can she dance round and round

mar-ghe-ri-ta still how cute how cute

now she goes pop when you open the top

such a silly a clown with fake tresses

and a smile smeared across her face the blond buffoon

springs up just-like-that from her brocaded hoopskirt

swaying like an idiot you’ll find it hard

to believe that this eyesore a scarecrow in a box

once upon a time had a name

mar-ghe-ri-ta

translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Aura Sibisan with the poet

The infanta Augustina

they took augustina to the fair

with gaily colored spikes they hung her

in the corner of a wooden booth and put

a red circle between her breasts step right up

ladies and gentlemen and try your luck

5 points if you shoot the horse 10 for the knight

15 for the castle gate and 100

that’s right one hundred points—THE Graaand PRIZE

for a bullet in infanta’s chest

show your stuff champ ready the rifle steady

against your shoulder take aim fire count how many

eyes wink half-open between augustina’s

breasts BINGO that’s a hit her legs flail about

her head her arms oh mama

look at the queen jitterbug

this plush teddy bear for the little guy

in the man-size cap hey big shot you’re next come on

who wants to take a pop you get

one hundred points for the infanta

it’s not difficult to hit her all you’ve gotta do

is squeeze the trigger when

she screams nooo with women this always

means yessss

translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Aura Sibisan with the poet

The infanta Francesca

since childhood francesca has always known

that at twenty she’d move

into the foundation of a church she had learned

that walls taste good and smell

like milk that love is nothing compared

to cement thickly poured

on the shoulder a cold brick

mortared to the thigh a course of stone

pressed against the belly

that no kiss can be

sweeter than the mouth stopped up

by a wall that feels warm from the fresh mist

of breath buried only a few moments before

for twenty years francesca has awaited

the moment of her deflowering

obscene dreams haunt her

like a sword a crucifix pierces

her breast her sex her brain

and all in a sweat she awakes

the room looks like it has shrunk

its walls have crept another step

toward her

translated by

Adam J. Sorkin and Aura Sibisan with the poet

The infanta Manola

manola had to be stuffed

she was too beautiful they couldn’t

put it off a moment longer any wrinkle

any crease in her skin would decrease

the great worth of the infanta

they sent for the finest straw

summoned a deluxe butcher courtiers priests

her body is destined to repose forever

in the great hall of the palace

nevertheless bitter debates rage should they

immortalize her seated in an armchair or standing

posed in a hoopskirt or wearing a riding habit

in modern fashion or period dress and if

modern which couturier should they favor

the bidding continued nonstop manola’s price

had soared she was more expensive

than all the paintings sculpture art

objects they couldn’t waste

a moment more

any crease in her skin would lead

to a disastrous plunge in her value

only right now this very instant can manola

fetch so enormous a price

translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Aura Sibisan with the poet

The infanta Isabella

on a saturday night they walled up

isabella under the warm glow

of candelabras holding fingers not

candles fingers burning as punishment

because she reached out with her hands

for a forbidden fruit: a red leather hat

the last word in hats shame on her

a hat in the shape of a bell

how could an infanta wear a whore’s

hat a cloche that grew only god knows how

on an age-old tree at the castle

chop down all the trees they bear strange fruit

damn their seeds! who planted them?

burn the garden poison the gardener

the keeper of the garden where isabella reached out

with her fingers for a forbidden thought

nobody could save her she was walled up

inside a hoopskirt two meters by two meters

gradually she turned as hard as stone and became

the clapper of a bell ISABELLLLAAAAAA

they hung her in the chapel

high above the castle

translated by

Adam J. Sorkin and Aura Sibisan with the poet

UTTER or Raping the Air (half-poem)

I am a half-brain
in a half-man
a midget angel my wings tattooed
with terrestrial landscapes
I possess a half-soul
empty as a coffee cup
turned upside-down

by a fortune teller
the black stains on its sides
are half-sins
the white stains on my imagination
are half-salvations
the black stains on my nose
are nothing else but black stains -
a day’s grime gathered
walking in Bucharest and generally
in the world
the white spots
on my nails are nothing but hieroglyphs

of calcium deficiency
I'm half-wanton and half-stiff
half-victim and half-thief
I have skin because I didn't know
what color fur to choose
at my birth
I have fur because I loathe
leather clothes
I have scales because I'm Pisces
I have feathers because I adapted myself
to chill and warmth to furnace and frost
I don't have a beak because I love
to have lips and mouth
wet lips and insatiable mouth
I'm half-rational and half-mad
half-alive and half-dead
but I love
to palpitate the air with the half-top
of my tongue
to lick to fondle to penetrate
its holes
to make it feel its transparent flesh
to wrest from it shouts of pleasure
to shove it in the corners of my palate
to hit it to beat it to rape it
to kill it
in other words - to utter words

List of my flaws and the percentage of untreatability

start

from one hundred per cent in

alphabetical order: abnormal 15% acidic 16%

amoral 17% angelic 16.17% anaemic 17.16%

alwaysreadytochange 25%

alwaysimpossibletochange 52%

bad 20% brutal 30% boring 40% boorish 0.4%

charming 60% cool 60% cynical 60% claustrophobic 60%

curious? – you’re too curious!

crazy – like a daisy

dreamer 66% dirty 33% dunce 6% demonic 3%

domestic 36%

euphoric 70% enthusiastic 71% erotic 72% energetic 73%

egocentric – see under one of a kind

gossipy 28% fantastical 27% hysterical 26% hypocritical 25%

intuitive 7.0% incoherent 7.1% impossible 7.2% improbable 7.3%

incredible – some would say

loving 50% lovable 50% loveless 50% lunatic 50%

mythomaniac 23% masochistic 77%

neurotic 80% original – is it ?

one of a kind – see under egocentric

paranormal-paranoid-paradoxical-paradigmatic 22%

paradigm 11% pathetic 10% sadistic 9% statistic 8%

romanian – don’t forget

sophisticated 80% shy 80%

superdooper 18% superbitch 19% superb 20%

temperamental 100%

tardy with time 200%

vamp – you wish!

wise – extremely zany – extremely

THAT’S IT !!!

(or not, or none

of the above)

translated by Aura Sibisan with the poet

Dayliness

hello hello hello hello wake up take

your shower get dressed drink

your coffee eat your egg boiled check

your purse have you got

all you need do you have

tram tickets do you have

car keys i.d. wallet shopping ?

list get going get going get going

boss will promote you you were

up early dedicated motivated dilligently for

the company you’ve made

heaps of money you were

very astute you haven’t

gossiped you haven’t

talked small set up schemes

for anyone to be fired or hired

you were not submissive but polite

respectful sympathetic with superiors not

dictatorial imoral amoral with

inferiors you may go

happily home you have accomplished

your duty don’t forget to

buy what your husband wife mother father told you

the refrigerator must always

have what it needs

you can be devoted to the fridge

until you refrigerate

your drives thoughts temptations

now you have rested awhile you have recovered

it’s high time you exchanged lines with your

husband wife mother father

you can have intercourse

with the first two but with the other two you ought to

help bear with accept

advice and then of course do not forget do not neglect

with its large friendly familiar

screen the TV do not forget do not neglect

the stove the iron the washing machine

the electric grinder the lamp the music box

the heater the remote control the mosquito zapper the phone

hello hello hello hello helloooo heloooo…

translated by Alina Nelega and Saviana Stanescu

Mia-maia and Tess-the-poetess

she could understand see hear

only what that crazy

soul-sister of hers Mia-Maia translated for her

the fat girl who dwelled heavily

inside her chest and suppressed
oppressed impressed her

so that of everything

Tess did replied thought

nothing at all was logical

seemed normal

made any sense

they said she’d lost her way

poor moonstruck young thing

in fact she was bored

people bored her

with their problems gossip smirks

their love affairs intrigues scandalmongering

she got along only with angels

whenever one of them decided

by chance to descend into that

turbulent perturbed disturbed brain of hers

she’d let him take sensible charge of her

in his care she’d more than willingly open her mouth

her sister Mia in hibernation in her chest like a boulder

where she stayed stone-still stone-quiet

and waited

for him to be done and be off

yes he wouldn’t last long

that creature oh she spoiled his placid disposition

his celestial bearing his forbearance so he

loved her quickly and left her

pregnant with a poem a painting

a sonata but never did he

even look back to see

what he might have left behind him in the world

that was it here today and then on the fly

going going gone

just like always this evening it went on again

a merry swarm a swirling flock
of satisfied angels

who had forsworn their lovers

writhing in labor

translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet and Jana Rotescu

The diary of a clone

-16 years, 3 months

I come of age I eat fruit and I do my best

clone clone

to be the other although I am he whenever he says I

I think of myself who

is not me

who am I

—you’re really enjoying this, lord—

across the lawns of my mind there strolls a mother

who is not my mother although she is my mother a mother

with silent glass walls with a slender transparent silhouette

through her hair I saw the trees outside

I watched the tips

of blue-black reddish fingers grasp mother

by her mouth shake her stare closely at me through

her glass sex while I scrambled in vain

for a corner a cranny a drawer my mother

had no nooks no angles she was perfect they

dipped all sorts of cold instruments into her and

ogled me like Peeping Toms well that’s how it happened

my test-tube mother’s face

superimposes upon the other’s face

my grandmother his mother it’s she

I dream of it’s her nipple I remember

however there’s

a third mother too the mother as they usually say

his wife that is of course mine too

because I am

a smaller he and nevertheless He as well

how can I tell my mother that I remember every bit of it

the tumbling around the nights spent together I know

the creases of her skin by heart her smell

still haunts me there between my thighs I’m obsessed

by the music of her twitches when

instead of coming out of her I was entering

—you’re really enjoying this, lord—

I am my father’s clone and I should

be grateful that I’m made in his image

child facsimile counterpart counterfeit

clone clone

adam

was he your clone almighty father?

it would be a true miracle

to become a man who penetrates my mother

and makes her pregnant so she’d bear me a baby

that is of course a brother sorry I mean a son

—you’re really enjoying this, lord—

I smash test tubes microscopes

shatter mirrors everything and anything

that comes my way I scratch

my grandmother’s picture where her boobs are

which I believe fed me I know

I’m my own father

yeah laugh it suits your type I’ll mash the ivory of your grinning mouths

and stuff your bloated beer bellies with bullets I’ll make you lose

your looks lickety-split I’ll tear out your hearts stack them here in a slimy pile

and you know what else then I’ll fling

one or two of them high into the air and

bang bang I’ll shoot birdshot at them like at sparrows

or I’ll shove bladderfuls

of your blood into the chest cavities

of birds fish animals I’ll do you some good

goddam moneyboxes jangling with the small change of ideas

I’ll send you all the way back

to your caves your ocean muck the air

once upon a time you were free

fuck-overs clonesmiths

you clowns haven’t a clue how good you used to feel

when you didn’t ever think

translated by

Adam J. Sorkin and Liviu Bleoca

Haunting deep inside you

I’m not sure I really want

to learn by heart

the landmarks

of your body

to map it precisely

on a 1:1 scale

or 2:1 instead

all your mountains valleys meadows

are occupied territories

condemned to the gallows

by my rebel imagination

that has already committed suicide

in cell no. 102

of your blood

going on a thirst strike

for crazy visions

it hasn’t missed much no

not in the slightest

it withered wizened shrank

such a pity

yes quite a pity

reason lamented from next door

it died there

in cell no. 102 of your blood

swimming spasmodically

in your cytoplasm believe me

nothing out of the ordinary

it could have escaped but no

it had to infiltrate your blood

penetrate deep inside you

haunt you

sort of dissolve itself

so as no longer to be

oh poor dumb thing

it has transformed you

into the unwitting king of a world

of slippery fish-images

elusive

delusive

illusive

ever since then you’ve been

writhing and twitching

as if possessed

by crazy frantic visions

there’s no cure

translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet and Jana Rotescu

Barbed-wire silences

pack up your silences your rags and snowfalls

pack the roof too

pack your speeches matches ashes

the lilac cigarette case from which every evening

I used to hang

my kisses my hands my blouse wreathed

in smoke rings I sipped your wrinkles

the small bunches so to speak jam-packed

at the corner of an eye on your forehead

you traded me for a great round coin

shiny and insipid incapable

of idle talk

the eyelid which

I gave you on Christmas

stretches itself voluptuously

across the shoulders of the coin you transformed

into a bat-winged piggy bank or

anyway a kangaroo-safe as I call you

suspended with your head upside-down

you look more or less tender

I take your fiery saint’s grimace

as solace I know

barbed wire tastes like salt

on wounds on the lips

of your body of mine oh god

I feel

my teeth aching to fall out

what a dream a dream

I lose my teeth and from their sockets

what a dream it’s no good a dream

multicolored thorns sprout

it’s no good what a dream no good

but surely it’s

wonderful

to be

the silent voluptuous barbed wire

of your body

translated by

Adam J. Sorkin with the poet and Jana Rotescu

Hunger strike for you

I sketch spirals and

obediently

you slide down the toboggan

of my last spiral

what could these be

what are you doing

leaping twisting clowning

maybe I could too

maybe maybe

but I no longer

see

hear

even dream

of your laughter

I no longer take my dose

of you-vitamins

I no longer have

you-breakfast in the morning

tonight I promise

I’ll throw out my entire you-dinner

well what now do you still feel like

somersaulting head over heels

transforming yourself magically

into whatever

into my pen let’s say

so maybe I could

touch you once more

spin you round

press you again

maybe I could maybe

we’re sketching spirals

translated by

Adam J. Sorkin with the poet and Jana Rotescu

The cage

I’ve gathered the women to mourn

open the cage kick out those clowns

who sleep heaped in a corner no don’t let them

stay there on top of one another

yeah what of it

I don’t believe. that there are colors. other than black and white and the tv. it was black and white. father was a clown. mother a mourner. paid by one person or another. when someone died mother the one. who came and mourned for everybody. I don’t understand how it works. that twisting up of the mouth convulsing. father did this kind of thing. I noticed it in other people and I thought it had to be fury. then I first learned to cry. I don’t know. it was a game it was a cross. wooden small. a gift for mother from a gentleman. whose wife had died. I knew her it was normal. for her to die. she always sang and danced around. above us. they lived upstairs. and mother too. sang. but not like that.

she died. mother. father. mourns. I wasn’t allowed before but now I go too. with father. to the circus. they all laugh. at me. because mother. a mourner.

translated by

Adam J. Sorkin with the poet and Jana Rotescu

Cookie the cook

Cookie wasn’t born like the rest of us

though just like anybody else she was

baked in her Ma’s oven

baked on a Sunday

from flour sugar eggs and milk

mixed thoroughly kneaded well

then put in a 15 x 53 cm. cradle

greased with butter

and set in the oven

she baked at a low temperature and after

almost an hour she cried

waaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

this is the way Cookie was born

becoming a good cook over time

sleeping in the oven until she reached twenty-five

then moving to the pantry

every day she was kneaded

by women with large housewifely hands

spoons tattooed on their housewifely breasts

avoiding men

hiding there on the shelf dusted with flour

until

the doughhead fell in love

with the life of the party a gay blade with buck teeth

bottles tattooed on his buttocks oh boy

Cookie decided on the spot

to be his forever and let them

slice her and serve her

beside the cup of wine

on his table

translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet

Lolo locomotive

What did she do?—oh, she wrote and wrote. She kept herself locked in, there behind the door to room no. 7, and in a frenzy she filled hundreds of pages; then, as if nothing were happening, once a month she “cleaned house”—the phrase she used—meaning she threw them away. She kept nothing, not a single sentence, not one thought, one word. The neighbors called her Madam Loony, Dame Dippy, Miss Loco, or else that Screwball Poetess, even though she didn’t write poems but something else, something meaningless, you couldn’t make head or tail of it, as if the torrent of words, moods, feelings could never be contained in its natural channel and had to overflow in a ceaseless flood. Or maybe—who could tell for sure?—this was its natural course. That brain of hers, sicko, might be the source of a river, God knows, yeah, maybe there are rivers of this sort, too, of words that dig a channel into paper. Old-timers said, “What do you suppose? Must a river spring only from the ground and flow to the sea? Our Lord God could also make word-rivers flow on paper.” Why not? The people in the building had already taken sides: some were convinced that sooner or later these poet types went batty, lived in houses with sticky spiderwebs clinging to the ceiling, buried themselves in a heap of paper and the bric-a-brac of words of every shape and size, God alone might understand what went on in their head. Others claimed to be experts, initiates into artsy matters, still they didn’t understand why the poet in no. 7 published no books, nobody had ever heard of her, nobody knew her name! It must be that she writes under a pseudonym, the people in the building concluded. And she wasn’t young either, she was forty or fifty, maybe sixty, you couldn’t be sure. But you could be sure she was there, alone in her small room, day in, day out: she didn’t eat, didn’t drink, didn’t sleep, she just wore down her pencils as if she were plastering her guts across those pages, feeding on pencil lead and coal. Yes, that’s it, she shovels in the coal, firing up those pages, as if she weren’t a woman but a locomotive, one of those mighty engines roaring down the tracks. Where she comes from, where she’s going, God Himself knows!

They finally found out about her, the people in the building, when they discovered her dead one fine day: skeleton thin, eyes rolled back in her head, sprawled forward on the little table. She’d been dead for a week, she stank, what else is there to say? The people in the building buried her the best they could. Then, a couple of days later, someone came, an old guy, seventy years or more, who inherited her small room. From him they learned, believe it or not, what Miss Loco their local poet had really been the whole time. A whore! Nicknamed the Locomotive, because she coupled with them all, the whole train of men, she gave them a ride for nothing, maybe some grub, whatever they could offer her. She could earn no rest, she never refused anyone, the old man said, she did nothing but wear out that skinny pathetic body of hers. Until she was out of business, nobody wanted her anymore, the Locomotive had nothing left, so she began to write. And write. They mocked her, laughed at her writing, utter nonsense, rubbish, they said, but she went on. She poured her soul into those pages, and it came to nothing, now, that’s that, she’s gone too.

translated by

Adam J. Sorkin with the poet and Jana Rotescu

Inside

I. The Pail

I told her

mama do my hair

but she wasn’t in the mood she yelled for

my father the colonel a former

colonel with his grenade case

and he rolled my curls

around the fat green grenades

their rings stuck out

dangling

on the left on the right

you’ve got the most beautiful hair

he told me and put his hand

on my head his fingers slipped automatically

into the rings of the fat green grenades

I don’t want to mommy no

I jerked away boom boom

my heart was beating

the clock struck six

mommy mommy bring a dustpan bring a broom

sweep all the pieces of me into your hand

father hurry up guests will be coming and we

aren’t ready I’m not

fully inside yet I won’t fit

push me push me in I feel

your hands oh father

it’s all right

I never really knew

it was so green inside

mother

II. The Chute

father why

am I falling where’s

my left thigh going

hey potato peel be careful

you’re half strangling me

knotted round

my artery number l00

or 50 or maybe 205 I’ve lost track

stupid arithmetic book my eyes

are snagged on your graph paper

one

two

three cockroaches

probably our next-door neighbor’s

killed with insecticide thanks

mama thanks

for pouring those five liters

of sour milk down here

really it’s so wet

and so white inside

mother

III. The Dump

today

my gums

got lost

under the nostril of an almost putrefied dog

no more than a glimmer a twitch

mama that meddlesome

Mercedes wheel has fused

with my temple

you know mama sex is something else here

when you wake up and it’s warm

then you give birth

you and the pieces of anything

near you in this way we multiply mama

look at

my windpipe—proud grandpapa

of a slimy mollusk with skin

scales seeds plastic

and now

these gums

have begotten a purple tooth

as purple as it’s big

oh so purple

mother

IV. Yellow Gray

it grew up fast

turned into

a purple dog

with a disgusting fang

an icky tooth sticking out beneath its chin

mother father

yellow gray is spilling

on the new stone floor

yellow gray

the dishrag can clean it up

don’t wipe us away

the purple tooth

bites everything

everyone’s on a skewer

mommy

a skewer

one after another

this horrible glue

sticks us together daddy

yellow gray

translated by

Adam J. Sorkin with the poet and Jana Rotescu

The Basic Cell

Motto: Oh, family, sweet basic cell

I praise you more than I can tell

they caught me

the bastards threw me away

here in this basic cell

this heap of skeletons mothers

fathers babies grandmas old biddies

aunts uncles good buddies

brrr!

icy shivers have me in their grasp

gripping behind the shoulders the back

down to my poor worn bottom

of a stew pot where

so much stuffed cabbage simmered

dumplings soup chickens

meatballs sauces macaroni

used to boil for centuries

in the kettle of the basic cell

basic cell of what? you’re kidding!

of society!

a true sanctuary

with doorways let’s go!

refrigerators

windows cut out!

washing machines

french doors stained-glass windows crystal

parlors boudoirs run away!

for making babies

and above all

that magical place

for deep elevated debate

between yourself and your rundown body

lost in thought

on the john the can the throne

Blowing Across the Table

help me

sweep myself among the pile of crumbs

of bread

after your meal so you can hold me

in your fist

like this

careful don’t let me

slip between your fingers

help me

squeeze this immense brain of mine

bursting with pus digits letters names

your name

help me resist my daily

temptation to explode everything

blast away this big hurty brain of mine

made in the test tube of my mother’s despair

when father came home drunk or maybe didn’t show up

at all that’s why they keep saying I’m

like this oh you poor little thing

wad me into a spitball

of bread moistened by your lips and

let’s play

let’s play blowing across the table

pfff I blow pfff you blow

and I roll

a spitball of bread moistened

by your lips I proliferate

in the test tube in the cauldron

I’ll make you a son

I’ll feed him my crumbs your crumbs

your loose change

pay me honey

give me a few bucks

to wad into a paper spitball to make you

another kid

maybe this is the one true way God

goddy God

give us our daily Goddy

we might all get to be held in your fist

you could forgive us

and throw us

here pidgy here pidgy pidgy

o your pigeons

Elegy for a Medical Student

his first cadaver

had a name tag and a gray eyelid

the most grayest no not supposed to say

most grayest although

it had a neck fingers fingerprints

hands and teeth and although

it had survived

so grayest a time

no not supposed to say so grayest a time

so grayest most grayest

the second cadaver

had scales

and soon would transmogrify

bubbling with joy

into bouillabaisse

the third was

minuscule

a mosquito squushed

on Madonna’s shoulder

on a page of typing paper

only her torso

sketched by Mihai a former high school classmate

another cadaver

the very most grayest no

not supposed to say that

during our last break

here in the basement with Ina

perched on my knees

and someone who offered us

a Kent from a pack and a little tidbit of a cough

so very little

it might even find room

on the tiny window just below the ceiling

and disconcert

some most honorablest citizen

in his most conservativest

most very grayest suitablest

suit

Handicap

I was born

with no power to draw a line to understand

limits borders an end point end result

death doesn’t make me shudder doesn’t make me cringe

I can’t see

the contours of objects things spaces

just aren’t clear to me

in my mind boundary

means door curtain glass pane anyhow

something like a connective

I can’t understand

the period I love commas and especially

colons ellipsis dots

question marks exclamation points

at school they told me I was crazy

maybe mentally retarded or who knows maybe

mentally advanced

like that time I could see people

minus their shape face body

only words colored

by the heat of emotion

today for instance

you rolled white sentences at me

yesterday your words were pink

last night red do you remember

a week ago you came toward me purple

I kept waiting for you black

and everybody milled about us

deep green

this really should be all

I tell you about myself but no

there’s one thing more

something I’m connected to

a cradle

thanks to it

I can at least intuit an edge a threshold

it’s the place that

rocks me

between golden yellow and golden blue

between blue and yellow

the shore

of the sea

Poems by Saviana Stănescu

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