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To a Jar by Henryk Cierniak
(Translated from Polish by John Guzlowski)

July 1, 2015 Contributed By: Henryk Cierniak, John Guzlowski

oh tiny jar
sealed up with rubber
and a fastener
just in case

it’s not true
that you carry
emptiness inside –
you contain room
for happiness and sorrows

and the pickled cucumbers are nice

oh you jar
the friend of long hours
at the fireplace
and summer revels

faithful friend
the transparent jar
made of glass
be always tight

DO SŁOJA

Słoju wierny
maleńki uszczelniony gumą
z zatrzaskiem na wypadek
wszelki
to nieprawda że nosisz
w sobie pustkę
chowasz miejsce
na radości i smutki
dobre są kiszone ogórki

Słoju przyjacielu długich wieczorów
przy kominku
i letnich hulanek
przyjacielu wierny
słoju przezroczysty
szklany
bądź zawsze szczelny

Return to table of contents for Issue 9 Summer 2015.

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Filed Under: Translation Posted On: July 1, 2015

Further Reading

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The Men Who Grow from Curbs by Lauren Schmidt

We’re made of beer cans and cardboard. We crease in November wind. Our blood streams in the whiz of cars. We groan like engines, wear mismatched boots. Our eyes are gears that crank a screen of all the lives we’ll never live to see. Our skin is yesterday’s New York Times. Our spines are made of […]

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When I realized I’d drifted deep into those riveted, river-resistant lily pads big as masks, I was reminded of how when you’re trapped   in insistence that it doesn’t matter that surely means it does. My oars slicing down on them through the water thick with sticky greens and ropy stems   made the sound […]

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