As part of this fall’s Lusosphere portfolio, we’re publishing accompanying work online. This translation feature highlights the work of two Brazilian poets, Eliane Marques and Leonardo Tonus. Work appears in both the original Portuguese and in English.
“A body on the sand” by LEONARDO TONUS, translated by CAROLYNE WRIGHT
“Federal Intervention” by ELIANE MARQUES, translated by TIFFANY HIGGINS
Music by ABRAHAM KATZ
Northern Israel-Palestine
The chunk of the ball
On the cracked blacktop
And our torsos so covered
In sweat nearby the sea
Swells and the smell seeps
Into our hair and the air
Single-headed.
Flowering inwardly.
Barely felt in the birth canal.
Medical marketer.
Sick with planet.
By MEGAN PINTO
Say Chicken Little was right, that the sky
is falling. What I want to know is,
will the moon fall too? Will it bounce softly
like swiss cheese, or will it crumble
like a stale cookie? Do skies bruise?
Do they ache? And is the sky
a metaphor for all the ills and evils
of the world? A testament
to how the earth can only hold so much
pain and grief? But why
would God send a chicken? Would you listen
to a chicken? Is the chicken a metaphor
for Jesus? Did the Bible mention this
and somehow I missed it? Is this because
in 6th grade my teacher made me promise Jesus
my virginity in a gift basket? Actually, if the sky falls,
By JOHN FREEMAN
Backlit by the glow
from a small passageway,
he kneels into the fog
of yellow light,
head kissing the carpet.
I step around him,
respecting his privacy, when
the mat becomes not prayer
rug but builder’s tool,
a black piece of tarmac, laid down
before the bank so he could
peer close, fix the dead
motion sensor so that people
with money could
be seen, all doors opening
for them.
By TARA SKURTU
It was the first time I’d lived
with a man, and I wanted him
to translate the name of our street.
He was holding my cold fist
in his own, and we were on
Ofrandei, in the middle of unpaved
Bragadiru, Romania, on our way
home. It’s something you give
to get something—like a sacrifice.
Like what you do for a god.
By MARCUS MYERS
If our bodies are vessels, hers sailed away.
I am sunken eleven months deep, away from her
hazel eyes like aulos pipers for my oarsmen,
away from her
I smell her—
she is in the bed sheets
conjuring aged summers
when popsicles stained
our mouths red,
and the sun colored
our noses black.
By BINA SHAH
Shazmina’s best friend, Gul Noor, died on a Monday, pinned down under the wheels of a speeding bus on the long road that stretched all the way down to the beach. Or maybe it happened on a Tuesday or a Saturday. Shazmina was never sure about the names for the days of the week. Monday-Thursday-Tuesday-Wednesday-Saturday melted, one into the other, like the trickles of oily water the buses left in their wake.
Memory: a man cradles his son onshore,
pressing warm sea breeze on his tiny rebellion.
If men gave birth, what would become of gods?
Don’t miss an issue! Subscribe to The Common.