it happened
it happened for real
it happened (stop it!)
I was able to sit and cry on the sidewalk while the rest of the vacation continued,
but I was still able to smell things
I could still eat
wydarzyło się
wydarzyło się naprwadę
wydarzyło się (przestań)
mogłam siedzieć i płakać na chodniku gdy reszta wycieczki
ale jeszcze mogłam wąchać
mogłam jeść
Queen Wasp
the queen wasp
opens her first pair of arms.
she convulses in the right chamber like
how nails sanctify a board.
rings of an opaque exoskeleton pierce the core of me.
I paddle––slower and slower.
mateczka szerszeń
mateczka szerszeń
rozchyla pierwszą pare ramion.
w prawiej komorze konwulsje – gwoździe
święcą deskę.
chitynowe pierscienie biegną we mnie.
wiosłuję. coraz wolniej.
messages
maybe a bottlenose dolphin will save me?
I’ve been sending messages my whole life
through my dreams. one bee
leans out of its nest and delicately
reels in the corpse of a honey bee
with the hands of a warrior.
I feel you,
brother.
sygnały
może uratuje mnie delfin butlonosy?
całe życie wysyłam sygnały
przez sen. jedna osa
wychyla się z gniazda i delikatnie
przejmuje martwą psyczołę miodną
z rąk wojownia.
czuję ten moment,
bracie!
fugue
I have hands like the kind I slept on.
Furthermore, I am surprised by my numb fingers;
I think they’re not mine. I have a tongue like I heard
a twisted bird all night long:
I open my lips and I only hear “trrrrr.”
fuga
Ręce mam takie, jakbym na nich spała,
z tym wystraszeniem drętwych palców –
że to nie ja. Język mam taki, jakbym przez całą
noc nacrecanego ptaka słyszała:
otwieram usta I tylko trrrrr.
the uptide
I have clothing made of leftover eggwhites.
my lungs throb.
the water rises to the water.
nadeszły wody
ubranko z resztek białka.
pulsują płuca.
wody nadeszły, wody –
the loneliness of inbred machines
here is something I can tell you about—but only to myself directly to my stomach.
ah! but the stomach is but a salty beach. salt cleans the body.
white bones stick up out of the sand
and inside their lips hides a salt-loving crab.
samotność wsobnej maszynki
o tym opowiedzieć – tylko sobie do brzucha.
a brzuch jest słoną plaza. sól wymywa ciało.
z piasku wystają białe kości,
w ustach się chowa słonolubny krab.
ANNA MATYSIAK was born in 1967. She is an editor, publisher, university lecturer, and a poet. She has published five volumes of poetry: Czułość liter (2015), Żrebię Heraklita (2017), Tyle nieznanych ryb (2018), Tiergarten (2019), and Wsobne maszynski (2020). She has held four individual exhibitions photography and is also the author of fairy tales.
PETER BURZYŃSKI earned a PhD in creative writing at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He holds a BA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an MFA in poetry from The New School, and an MA in Polish literature from Columbia University. He works as the book center manager at Woodland Pattern Book Center in Milwaukee. Burzyński is the translator of Martyna Buliżańska’s This Is My Earth (New American Press, 2019) and the author of the chapbook A Year Alone inside of Woodland Pattern (Adjunct Press, 2022). In between his studies he has worked as a chef in New York City and Milwaukee. His poetry, translation, and reviews have appeared in The Georgia Review, jubilat, RHINO, Forkli
An artist, art writer and guest curator, ELIZABETH JOHNSON began writing reviews for artpractical.com in San Francisco, California, and later covered exhibitions in New York City, Philadelphia, and the Lehigh Valley for theartblog.org. She has written for artcritical.com, Artvoices Magazine, Figure/Ground, PaintersonPaintings.com and DeliciousLine.org. She interviews gallery artists for Gross McCleaf Gallery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
