Translated from the Danish by Susanna Nied.
This is part of our special feature, New Nordic Voices.
my fathers mother kept smoking after her stroke
one side of her face was paralyzed
she could just barely hold her lips together, they werent airtight
it must have affected the strength of her smokes
i think now
i couldnt have thought about it then, i was ten when she died
when i focus on thinking of her its not her face that comes clear
photos have destroyed that memory
when i try to remember how she looked instead i remember the quality of the photo
one picture is grainy
the other was printed in a format thats not standard anymore
i remember some objects attached to her existence
a placemat of shiny red oilcloth
a concrete planter with flowers, a corner of amagerbro street tells me to turn here
this is grandmas street
if i stay long enough with the objects rooms begin to form
a narrow hallway
a door leading into the living room
the bedroom
a bed.
i think i can place myself in that bed again
but the story attached to the bed destroys the focus
we lay there
in that bed together
we always watched big day at the beach
a general story
if it was wednesday we always watched big day at the beach
presence becomes strongest in what’s detached
if i walk back out of the bedroom
through the living room, the narrow hallway
the bathroom
there i once washed my face
cold water
hands
face
mirror
mint green
a little bag of lavender
that’s all. that the water is cold
that it feels good.
i can’t remember when i realized
grandpa was beating them all
as my father recalled:
every day we waited for the blows and then it got quiet
your grandma might be lying in the kitchen
which was a direct extension of the hall and was equally narrow
or she might be lying in the hall
grossest if she bled, if i had to wipe up.
as soon as the hallway is present i can be my father
not if i start thinking of his child-knees
brown shorts
the way it is in the picture:
grandma in white, dad in brown shorts
then everythings lost
and i cant find my fathers gaze
sitting on the bed
from there if the divider is pulled aside he can see the kitchen table
i know that my father left home at fourteen
he was a junkie for a few years and lived on the street
i recently found out how later in his life he spoke of my mother in letters
to other women
the little pig took the abortion well, he writes
if he beat her she went over to annis house, she didn’t want her mother to know
i know because later anni told my mothers mother
a memory never experienced that came to be after i saw those letters:
the letters are left out
he never intended to send them to anyone
my mother is supposed to find them, shes supposed to be destroyed
they lived in the same apartment i live in now
i think they loved each other
my nails have grown long and been trimmed many times since my mother died
more times since my father died
i wash things off and regret it
you have the same body as your fathers mother
my mother always said that
you have the same facial expressions as your father
everyone says that
no one could hear the difference when i answered the phone at my mothers house
her father thought he was talking to his daughter
my mothers last husband hit her too
thinking of him walking along outside the window
he got something from the car, abashed
something about the way he showed dissatisfaction with the lunch at the bar & grill
as if his clothes had gotten too big
and seeing him in the new apartment after my mothers death
he’d bought two easy chairs, an imagined life ahead of him
everything is lost from here where im writing
put my hand on my mothers forehead, make sure she doesn’t have a fever
that her palms arent sweaty
that shes sitting on her bicycle
on the way to the ocean, we pick elderberries
all the love i have can fit into an elderberry
someone should have taken away her meekness
my mother
i should have said:
no one has the right to destroy you
all those fuckheads
youre meticulous with your makeup before we leave for the school program
forget it
just forget it
theres no reason to be kind to anyone unkind
forget it
no one has the right to demand that you be kind to the unkind
not quite :
stand a ladder at the edge of a strawberry bed
climb up and think how much fun it would be to let yourself fall
so people thought you were dead. how sweet the dirt would be. not that!
not like that insanity, that strip of sun, a cat so easily finds what sun there is
small creampuffs can be so small you go crazy
nipples after a morning swim
the ocean sets in with all its helplessness
foam! not that!
how immense
a nubbly strawberry. as the swell is dark
and the ocean takes you if you want, if you walk out to the other side of the sandbar
as the swell is dark and cant be anything else except at the dentists
in the dentists eyes
another life with pink swells
not in his gaze either
how precise it must be
not in his gaze either
not with legs spread at the ob/gyns either
not in his gaze either
even if he later appears in a program i saw about retirees who move abroad
not in his backyard either, now in texas
and the ocean, if you want to walk out to the other side of the sandbar
and even if the strawberry hasnt asked you to covet its nubbly surface
then not there either
with seagrass against the back
someone says something far off
the wall of the house yellow, the body is warmed all to pieces
its hard but not impossible to walk the north sea shore in stiletto heels
and not there either
in marys bed, close to the intersection
so witless, still staying upright staggering home along guldberg street in constant danger
of falling
and still not
how small the creampuff that the counterperson offered me: would I like one
then I completely lost my wits
then on the way home the ice on the lakes had broken up and as soon as that happens
as soon as youve become so stupid, no more exposed than everything is
wish i were named torben and had an easier life
and then i would have stood there totally fucked silly in the 7-eleven
and marveled that i was named torben and that what i was named meant nothing anyway
way wild and the directionlessness would be so obvious
that one walked on hot coals that one wasnt the boss in ones own house
and just as one can want to lick a baby because its totally little
all the love one has, oh dear ive lost my mind
if one more snowflake hits my neck and melts down my back
then ill fucking fuck everyone i see or ill start to cry and never stop
got a card from a woman named livia whos about to turn a hundred
she thinks im named livia and turned seventeen last monday, and she wishes me happy birthday
tanti cari auguri di buon natale the card says
what a joy! no one has their facts straight! everyone has their head up their ass!
everyone at some point has been so hot and then rested their thighs against rocks that have been in the shade all day
everyone has been so marvelously little
Asta Olivia Nordenhof (b. 1988) debuted in 2011 with her novel Et ansigt til Emily. She is a graduate of the School of Authors in Copenhagen, and was awarded the 2013 Montanas Literature Prize for her poetry collection Det nemme og det ensomme (“The Easiness and the Loneliness”).
Susanna Nied is an American writer and translator. She has been honored with the Landon Translation Award of the Academy of American Poets (2007) and has twice been named a finalist for the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation (2005, 2012). Her translations of Danish poet Inger Christensen are published by New Directions.
Published on April 17, 2018.
