Ramunė Brundzaitė

mama, what happened here?
I ask and ask, already, one might say, grown up

rarely do I climb on a stool anymore to reach for
something high

now I reach for other things, for example,
higher education –
so that I could still boast of something to my
parents,
so that my relatives would be more forgiving: this
one, after all, has a higher degree

mama, what happened here?
since childhood, she said, I was crazed,
always trying to comprehend what happens when
you ascend

even now, I scrape my knees
choosing the wrong way
collecting black and blue marks like a child

smearing my hands with ink

this one writes and writes – what can we do? she
has a higher degree
they don’t have much to boast of, my parents
in front of my relatives

mama, what happened here?
I don’t know why I wanted to be, like a boy, not a
hairdresser,
but an astronaut

and then it began: earrings, climbing through
windows,
staying away from home, friends, beer – I felt like I had
set foot on the moon
a little later: poems about moonlight
and the search for an elevated moment – like
Mačernis, our visionary

and yet I never reached a higher aerobatics

and remain
very much afraid
of heights

Literature doesn’t depict women shaving their legs
(from a lecture on literary theory)

I. razor blade

a puppy licks the woman’s calves
gnaws with sharp little teeth
the bone overgrown with grass
leaving a red rash
on the other side
of skin

a cat sleeps in the woman’s underarm
occasionally plucking at hairs
the woman, framed by nylon, foam
face towels and a realm of shadows
paints a portrait of someone similar to herself
(while the little jars of paint quietly wane)
the bathroom changes the woman
the clock strikes

the mirror nods
– now you can go.
returned home, the woman
washes off the salts of sweat
chases away the eye’s shadows
removes the lips’ gloss
in the loneliest of rooms
she releases the water, the body herded all day,
the cat and the dog
to graze in the grass

his lips remind me of
an unhusked sunflower seed
their taste is the same:
salty, a bit bitter
his lips are opening shells of seed

when my tongue caresses his ear
I remember Van Gogh
and think of what would be,
what would happen, if I bit –

I don’t want to return his body
I’ll leave yellow blossoms as change
black seeds

what would grow if I were to sow those lips like seed?

This city is too small to hide in:
you always end up meeting
all of those you want to most –
and all of those you don’t...

Most often at the mall:
there’s so many of them, huge and anonymous
but you still find yourself hiding behind the laundry
detergents
(a subtle sign of the soul’s immaculation).

They say it’s best to hide in plain sight
so I position myself next to objectified words
and verbalized people –
there where you can find me most easily
where I have a name, surname, personal ID,
such and such a weight on a neat table of numbers,
a plastic cup of coffee, cigarettes which
we share with our brothers in solitude,
sending them around in a rolling dance...

– no problem, I say, no problem,
this spring is so madly green,
blooming so much that even my womb
has sprouted weeds and buds
like the trees
the starlight of the operating room is so bright
I have but one wish falling
into consciousness’ boggy blank – – –
then I suddenly breathe the air again,
and the final vision before opening my eyes:
the blooming almond tree of our garden

– how do you feel?
– I dreamt of spring, I answer
still tangled in the threads of narcotics,
wound by ivies of drainage tubes, my soul
dripping back into my body from the IV
– no problem, I say, no problem
only the continuing pain in my scraped out womb
only life spreading more sharply outside
and the louder tick of the clocks