colo lap

colo

deita o garfo mudo no meu colo
diz coisas incompreensíveis sobre o amor
diz coisas domesticáveis sobre a vida e o ódio
diz não saber separar a morte da morte momentânea
diz a aflição sobre a comunicação entre gatos
deita a faca nua no meu colo
diz coisas interditadas sobre uma ideia de flor
diz coisas debaixo das unhas dos mortos
entre seus cabelos
deita o prato sujo no meu colo
diz coisas e diz e dança os dedos
deita o copo trincado no meu colo
diz coisas diz coisas e tudo que escuto é o rasgo nesse nosso manso idioma
 

lap

lay the mute fork in my lap
say incomprehensible things about love
say domestic things about life and hate
say not knowing how to tell death from technical death
say the anguish over the cat’s communication 
lay the naked knife in my lap
say forbidden things about the thought of flower
say things under the nails of the dead
between their hairs
lay the dirty plate in my lap
say things and say and dance the fingers
lay the cracked glass in my lap
say things say things and all I hear is the tear in this our gentle language
 

Lap

lie the mute fork in my lap
say incomprehensible things about love
say tameable things about life and hate
say not to know how to separate death from momentary death
say the affliction about the communication between cats
lie the naked knife in my lap
say forbidden things about an idea of flower
say things under the nails of the dead
among their hair
lie the dirty plate in my lap
say things and say and dance the fingers
lie the cracked glass in my lap
say things say things and all that I hear is the rip in this our gentle language
 

Our bridge-translator, Annie McDermott, explained that when someone reads her poems, Diacov has said she wants them “to know (or suspect) what made me spill water there, or to spill the water with me, or to spill the water in their own way… And for the water to surprise them, not to obey the laws of gravity, or even to be a cloud rather than water”. This estranging, disorientating quality of both sympathy and incomprehension was evident to us when we were working on the poem together. There was a terrible moment of revelation when one of the participants pointed out that “dance the fingers” might be the fingers attached to “the nails of the dead”, the definite article suddenly seemed all the more violent and unsettling.

Throughout the translation we tried to keep the tension between the implied subject of the sentences and the speaker. Trying not to reduce, definitively, the lines to either imperative instructions or the actions of an implied subject. Is that ‘our’ in the final line the intimate plural of a couple or the unity of all the speakers of a given language? Rather than decide we tried to maintain this unease, this unresolved quality.

Edward Doegar, Commissioning Editor

Original Poem by

Carla Diacov

Translated by

Annie McDermott with The Poetry Translation Workshop Language

Portuguese

Country

Brazil