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fasting: recourse by Martyna Buliżańska
(Translated from Polish by Peter Burzynski)

January 1, 2018 Contributed By: Martyna Buliżańska, Peter Burzyński

(was there a war here?; a war like a rhapsody?)

I rub away any traces; bald biblical women keep giving birth to me.
I see that they stick their hands out the window and wave to passing ships.
In this place I set the trap

—this includes Kolbuszowa.1

By way of the barren Jewish fields and the twisting of intertwined hands the soil is picked apart as it cracks like light escaping a prism. I begin my hunting season: I am mired
while searching for the last bits of flesh—their bodies.

Roadside crucifixes do not burn;
heaven-bound, they follow me.

 

 

post: regresowe

(czy tu była wojna, wojna jak rapsodia?)

rozcieram ślady; rodzą mnie kolejne łyse biblijne kobiety.
widzę, wychylają dłonie przez okna i nawołują okręty.
w tym miejscu zastawiam wnyki

—właczem Kolbuszową.

przez żydowskie nieużytki i wiązanie dłoni pęka moja ziemia, wyłuskując
ostatnie ogniskowe. zaczynam sezon polowań: grzęznę, szukając
ostatnich ciał.

przydrożne krzyże nie płoną;

wchodzą za mną do domu Pana.

 

 

1A Small Town in Southeastern Poland whose coat of arms prominently stresses unity between Polish Jews and Polish Christians as it shows two hands shaking with a Christian Crucifix above and a Star of David below them.

 

 

Return to table of contents for Issue 12 Winter 2018.

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Filed Under: Translation Posted On: January 1, 2018

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