Signs, and: Not knowing what to do with my hands …

Abstract

Signs, and: Not knowing what to do with my hands … Aksinia Mihaylova (bio) Translated by Marissa Davis (bio) Signs Below the horizon, a boat skims the sea.The air conditioners drip ink.Starving gulls twist above salt marshesin ellipses—shelterfor black salt, for white saltstill untouched by autumn rain.Like headstones taken off their tombs,two birds straying from the flockfall a half-meter from the patiowith an elegiac cry. In the parking lot,an already-dead languagecrumbles into syllables of stoneover the cars. A stinging dust coats Ovid—but it is too late to gatheromens, too late to read them. I am not here in these pages of radiant frothflooding the banks of our parallel solitudes.I am not on that patio. Not above the roofs.I had made it to the heart of man,distanced myself from myself—but our liveslasted several times that of Godwearing man's soul.And I returned to me. The afternoon is calm. I study a horizonthat has not moved for years,waiting for the words tossed to space to return— [End Page 158] like orange blossoms, like an ache—so I can touch themand take them into me. Now I write:I do not look for signs on the water's surfacewhen you are in Sète and I in Crimea.In a place of love,there is no need for language. But you don't read Cyrillic.The air conditioners drip ink. [End Page 159] Not knowing what to do with my hands … Not knowing what to do with my hands,I clutch a basket of figs to my chestas he walks away from the garden of joy,buttoning the last ray of sunlightto his Adam's apple. Tomorrow, he will locka watercolor depicting the desireto change his lifein the day's lowest drawer again; he will shake my smell off his skinlike a bee shakes acacia pollen from its legs; he will regain his place among the statuesthat spread manuscripts over their headsfor a sky. I believed I had planted a flower in him.But timid steps. But rumpled sheets.But the dogs of insomniascratching all night at the door— he shrinks and dries. His bones thinlike his unwanted body. Slugs crawl outfrom under the stonespiling in his gut, in his throat, on his tongue,loneliness creeping in their pale trails. Like a blind man, you feel your wayforward, backward,from one end to the otherof a desire run dry. Mold grows in the house's humid colors,green like his eyes, his tears. [End Page 160] Who does this home belong to?And what is this city, and whowill console you in this afternoonhung from the parapet? Perhaps the womanwith chapped lips, a dry tongue,a wounded left breast. Perhaps the desireto coax her, to giveher freedom back. [End Page 161] Aksinia Mihaylova Aksinia Mihaylova is a poet, educator, and translator of over thirty-five books of poetry and prose. She is the author of six poetry books in Bulgarian, translated into numerous languages. Ciel à Perdre, her first poetry collection written in French, received France's Prix Apollinaire in 2014. She released her second French-language collection, Le Baiser du Temps, in 2019; it went on to become the 2020 recipient of the Prix Max-Jacob. Mihaylova is the founder of the independent literary journal Ah, Maria, and currently resides in Sofia, Bulgaria. Marissa Davis Marissa Davis is a poet and translator from Paducah, Kentucky, residing in Brooklyn, New York. Her original poems have appeared in the Carolina Quarterly, Rattle, Iowa Review, and Sundog Lit, among other journals. Her translations have been published in Ezra and are forthcoming in Mid-American Review. Davis holds an MFA from New York University. Her first chapbook, My Name & Other Languages I Am Learning How to Speak (Jai-Alai Books, 2020), was the winner of Cave Canem's 2019 Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady Prize. Copyright © 2021 Middlebury College