Translation

By ANANDA LIMA

I wait and weigh the odds
of me being who feeds
and feeds and scrolls through
feeds feeding on grey

matter de eu ser um ser que come
supported by skeleton feeding on
feeds que se alimentam de massa
cinzenta made of carbon as all living

things sustidas por esqueletos
com suas espinhas vertebrais
feitas de carbono como todos os seres
vivos como a coluna central do lápis

the ribless spine of pencil
lead pure carbon
os miolos cinzentos dos lápis
or graphite and clay

carbono puro eu
ser que navega e se alimenta
de grafite e argila de chance
de espera de caminho

Ananda Lima’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in The American Poetry Review, Poets.org, jubilat, Colorado Review, Rattle, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Hobart, and elsewhere. Her chapbook Translation won the Vella Chapbook Contest and will be published by Paper Nautilus in 2019. She has an MA in linguistics from UCLA and is a fiction MFA candidate at Rutgers University-Newark. Lima has taught at Montclair State University and UCLA and currently teaches undergraduate creative writing at Rutgers.

[Purchase Issue 17 here.]