Tone Skrjanec
Two poems translated from the Slovene by Matthew Rohrer and Ana Pepelnik
night is warm. it smells like boiled
cabbage and krizia.
night is warm. it smells like boiled cabbage and krizia.
a naked foot hesitantly rubs the carpet.
searching for the sun, cannabis has plastered its little leaves
on the window like curious kids do. a bird,
that special one with the yellow tummy, sat
on the sill. i catch your fire only sometimes for a moment
in my palms. sometimes the night is black, the lights are out
but everything glares and sparkles like we’re by the sea,
from one side the sea sparkles, from the other, the world.
Sunday Is the Day When I Don’t Make It to the Phone
a window in a room is facing a meadow
cut diagonally by the shadow of an apartment building.
i’m sitting at the table doing the usual stuff—
peeling potatoes, cutting them into thin strips
and watching the knife whitening
with potato starch.
first the kitchen
and then the room is filled with the heavy smell
of cooked kale
and boiling oil.
a smell annoying at first
which later i don’t even register,
just like my thoughts, or actually feelings
which are crawling around my mind
putting me into a state of melancholic rapture.
when i walk to the window
there are women in aprons gathered in a sunlit meadow
cutting dandelions from the soil with knives.
a black poodle runs by
followed by a child aged four or five.