*(Translations from Romanian by Diana Manole and Adam J. Sorkin)<\/p>\n
You pile chiselled lines on top of each blow
\ngiven or received,
\nmetaphors or quotations, learned ironies or images
\nthat bleed English, French, German,
\nand ejaculate Latin.
\n\u201cAn erudite in the Renaissance style,\u201d
\nall say about you,
\nalthough the Renaissance put all your kind in chains
\nfor profitable centuries.<\/p>\n
Soon
\nyou\u2019ll become a man made entirely of words,
\na black Sisyphus,
\ntrying to carve his place in the history book
\nwithout starting revolutions,
\nblowing up airplanes,
\nor killing women of every colour
\nto wolf them down
\npiece by piece
\nroasted slowly over the stove\u2019s flame.<\/p>\n
You try to retrieve your laughter in the gap
\nbetween two screams of agony \u2013
\npanthers, gazelles, and people skinned alive by drunk
\nSouth Carolina farmers
\nfor the sake of scientific experiments\u2013
\n\u201cWhat colour would the flesh be under black skin?\u201d \u2013
\nand the desire to find one more reason
\nto party
\nin the name of the long-lost Queen.<\/p>\n
\u201cA coal-black crow like all the rest,\u201d grunt
\nstone-deaf men who pass you by,
\nsquinting.
\nWords in all languages and colours wriggle
\non your fleshy lips
\nlike maggots on thousands
\nof rotting corpses
\nthat you gather to carry on your back
\nfrom the African savannahs.<\/p>\n
The flesh-eating bacteria devour your heart
\njust because you happen to exist.<\/p>\n
First Lesson. On Pain<\/span><\/p>\n Once in a while you get frightened \u201cN***er!\u201d<\/p>\n Some thirty years later she also shouted \u201cN***er!\u201d she yelled You rest in me like a peasant on Sunday morning \u2013 \u201cI love your Romanian accent,\u201d you murmur Your tongue timidly squeezes between my lips \u2013 You stare into my eyes You take off my clothes \u201cBlisters of History<\/em>,\u201d you whisper. *(Translations from Romanian by Diana Manole and Adam J. Sorkin) Sisyphus. Black You pile chiselled lines on top of each blow given or received, metaphors or quotations, learned ironies or images that bleed English, French, German, and ejaculate Latin. \u201cAn erudite in the Renaissance style,\u201d all say about you, although the Renaissance put all your kind in chains for profitable…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":796,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":716,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions\/716"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nlike that time
\nwhen your father pushed your hand into
\nthe flame on the kitchen stove
\nmore out of curiosity than to teach you
\na lesson.
\nYou were three or four, just wanting to play,
\nbut he decided it\u2019s never too early
\nfor a boy to become a man.
\nYou forgot to scream, amazed at
\nthe white blisters full of water
\nblossoming
\non your coppery skin.
\nPain came much later
\nwhen the kid next door was the first to cast
\na stone
\nwithout any awareness of sin.
\n(Jesus had gone off to wander somewhere
\nin the Middle East,
\nhelplessly gaping at women beheaded
\nin the middle of the road
\nfor a mere glance upon a stranger
\nor a pair of sunglasses with red frames.)
\nThe neighbours\u2019 boy had blonde hair and blue eyes
\nlike a cherub
\nin a Renaissance painting.
\nHe looked at you
\nas if you belonged to him
\nand shouted a word
\nyou were yet to learn:<\/p>\n
\nand turned her white cheek as if you were
\nabout to hit her,
\nforgetting
\nthat she was still singeing through you
\nwith each breath,
\none hand liberating you from your darkness,
\nthe other
\npouring kerosene over your body
\nwhich still shivers
\nlike a teenager\u2019s at his first love
\nwhenever he catches sight of her.<\/p>\n
\nflicking the lighter,
\ndetonating.
\n<\/p>\nObedience. Training<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\nmind adrift,
\nwhite and black hands clasped together in a prayer
\nthat neither you nor I remember
\nto begin.<\/p>\n
\nand right away forget about me,
\nslightly hunchbacked under the burden of
\ndozens of worlds crowded into you,
\nsunk
\nup to your elbows
\nin my soul
\nlike a potter with his arms in the clay he kneads
\nto form
\nthe most exquisite vessel.
\n(Stanzas come and go according to a personal
\ntimetable.
\nToday, seven poems poured out
\non my computer screen
\nin a staccato rhythm
\nechoing the chatter of the jungle.)<\/p>\n
\nthe most improbable delicacy
\nand most efficient obedience training.
\n\u201cKiss me,\u201d you demand, \u201ckiss me
\nin the middle of the square,
\non the streetcar, on the subway,
\nin front of City Hall,
\non top of the CN Tower, and
\nin Cabbagetown.\u201d
\n(I\u2019m begging
\nfor I don\u2019t know what.)
\n\u201cKiss me, kiss me for the world to see.\u201d
\n(I\u2019m trembling
\nbut I don\u2019t know why.)
\n\u201cKiss me and keep me,\u201d you pray,
\nwishing
\nto split me in two,
\nshrink into my uterus,
\nwaiting for the Resurrection.<\/p>\nThanksgiving. Gift<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\nundecided
\nhalf seeking to reinvent yourself,
\nhalf seeking sex.<\/p>\n
\n(slowly, still undecided)
\nand I dissolve
\npowerless
\ninto water \u2013
\nsurrounding your body
\ndrip by drip
\nseeking
\nto whiten your skin,
\nclean your scabs,
\nfill your emptiness.<\/p>\n
\nUnderstanding doesn\u2019t make it
\neasier.<\/p>\n*Selections from <\/span>B&W<\/em> (Bucarest: Tracus, 2015). Trans by Diana Manole and Adam J. Sorkin<\/span><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"