Translated from the Icelandic by Meg Matich.
This is part of our special feature, New Nordic Voices.
FRAGILE THINGS
wet paper
tangled in birch branches
inside the window, smoking,
a woman with red hair
says to herself:
they can’t hear me anymore
irises
slip into the white
like burst egg yolks
the living room is heavy
on the carpet,
fragile things, scattered,
soaked in bile
she wraps them
cautiously
in old newspapers
and shoves them back
down her throat
FIRE MOTHER
They’ve persisted
in watering me
for years
placed me on the window sill
stored me there
forgot me there
but it’s fine:
add fuel to the flames
it’s fine:
a woman is the pyre
BURNING SMELL
mom is turning into
an unanswered phone call
here are my limits
she says and chalks
a circle around herself
her embrace, once hot
now hardens
still, cinders slip
into her mail slot
often,
as if in tow
as if she herself bears the torch
that burns the bridge behind her
mom barks into the phone
like a chained dog
forbidden from moving closer
and when she does
she wants nothing but to comb
your hair, hold your hand
braid her long fingers
with your short ones
she asks you to sing her song
howls it out of an open car window
laughs: we‘re not in tune
and she‘s right
you’re off-key
you can’t grow up fast enough
she can’t calm herself down
Fríða Ísberg (1992) is an Icelandic poet and reviewer. Her first collection of poems, Slitförin (e. The Stretch Marks), was released by Partus Press in October, 2017. The collection was awarded the Icelandic Booksellers Choice Award for Poetry 2017, received the Grassroots Grant from the Icelandic Literature Center and was nominated for Fjöruverðlaunin, The Icelandic Women’s Literature Prize in 2018. She is a member of the Icelandic poetry collective Svikaskáld (e. The Imposter Poets) and writes occasionally for the Times Literary Supplement.
Meg Matich is a Reykjavik-based translator-poet. She’s received numerous awards for her work as a translator from organizations like the Icelandic Literature Centre, PEN America, and the Fulbright Commission, and has translated poetry for UNESCO. Cold Moons (2017 Phoneme Media) is her first full-length translation of Tími kaldra mána by Magnús Sigurðsson. The work (EN/IS) has been ‘translated’ into a choral symphony by composer David R. Scott. Her translations have appeared or are forthcoming in places like The Boston Review, Gulf Coast, Asymptote, and Words Without Borders. She is currently editing and translating an anthology of 32 Icelandic poets for The Café Review’s Summer 2018 issue.
Published on April 17, 2018.
