Poetry

Note on the poems and images Poems originally published in Swedish in Vad jag saknades här (Stockholm: Bokförlaget Lejd, 2018). English by Nicola Vulpe. Images from the series philosophy of a tree by Gazelle Bastan (2022)

Walls You tell me you are not like me. Nor am I like you, but obliterating my thoughts, my feelings, my senses was not yours to do. It was my place as well as yours and if I chose not […]

Pororoca Do you hear the lament of the deep riverwhere you played as a childlaughed when youngand in which you drown today? Playful shorestickling water lettucesexcited crabshiding in the warm sandwhere you dipped your feetfreelyyour cleaned handsoverflowingwith the fullnessof the […]

    Chernobyl II Revelation 8:10-11 “… the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.” We are the Chernobyl babushkas wearing black kerchiefs. We are the ones with radiation sickness. We are […]

    AT THE END OF THE YARD Because after much meandering I’ve determined the world is that new bicycle, its chrome menace: Tour de France, Giro d’Italia, that hill. And because we laid out the table in the garden, […]

  There Was a Wind There was a wind blowing outside, a dog barking, flashing headlights. When your stomach turned black in your RV, you finally got scared. You decided the time had come to softly drift. All you needed […]

      Concertina   Think of all the times you haven’t been thwarted by your teeth and tongue, your clavicle and ulnas, femurs and gut. Body says, This one’s on me. Brain says, What’s remembered lives; It’s alright not […]

      POEM OF THE UNFINISHED SANDWICH   Tomato slice, white baladi cheese, rye, a bite taken from one end, crumbs. An ant trudges her burden across the blue countertop. Ah, if only you’d listened! Ah, yes, if only […]

  Green String Beans Long thin beans on slender stems, fresh, smooth velvet carefully picked, weighed, lifted. Carried them as she did the signs of fading youth. Softened each one gently from ends, Prepared, diced into tiny circles, pearls in […]

And you’d ask: Why do you write about fetuses and swallows, “Ciuri, Ciuri”? Flowers, Flowers.

the same soil that buries our lives

because she can only avoid so long

Social feeds serve bodies, bludgeoned and lynched.

A girl could fall 40 years through time

to chase transgression, tussle demons in a private show

to escape—one last time—that worn-out chest

These days, I stand to gather the bones

blows between earth and sky

A stilled world, living in frames?

clenched muscles relax without warning

on the lake shuts tight

Bring me flowers and bees.

sagging above the deep

Strapped to a machine alone the suck thump thump suck thump thump

Yes, I just used scare quotes. I can’t help myself