Barbara Pogačnik (Slovenia)

FALL OF LIGHT
     
                              The men are rudderless, bobbing like balloons
                              That overflew the siege of Paris:
                              They roll on frictionless, leaving holes in the air.
                                Patrick McGuinness
 
 
Mouth full of ocean, you speak into the wind
like a fingernail being torn: whose is my body. wind drives
a mass of airy colors along the hill. armless,
it stirs the powder of luminous algae strewn across the painting,
and the canvas – an endless parachute coming upon us.
by thin lines we cling to its bowler hat,
never reaching the ground: we hang in deafness.
 
in a flashing reflection I saw a body: standing on the edge of the day,
cold, black pistol hips leaning against a white pole
and the milky expanse of day spreading across the ocean.
if the blood horror had happened, the body didn’t utter it. no word
could keep it from floating higher up under the sky’s canopy,
like a balloon leaving a hole in the blue.
 
in the middle of the canvas, stuck in huge gray yarn
of a wool cauldron, yellow light brews in the glow,
as the bottom of the pot wrought over the ocean
descends into the throats of the ignorant.
 
on an empty road I opened my mouth, the ocean
was gray and I could feel the red tongue
dark against my palate,
my body wrapped in ice cream whiteness
of curly stripes on milky shore.
the innocent I, sensing the cruel rambling
of a kindred body at my back.
 
 
Translated by Julija Potrč & Christopher Meredith
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