Crisis (poem by Florin Caragiu, English translation: Corina Gina Papouis)

childhood unfolds out of its hinges
using shape reproducing exercises
which make you understand what you hurriedly refuse:
the unhealing illness bringing you close to love,
crisis sliding light on foes,
when all around becomes unclear.

the only handy Braille alphabet
are those bodies undusted
and the awkward movements
from the moment of a friend’s vanishing.
people are cruel
because they dream themselves as heroes,
but no fairy-tale overlaps with life
because when you are truly unwell,
it re-writes itself with a thundering speed
out of chunks from the future

the old lady from the nursing home talks to me about leaving:
her story pounds like a revived heart.
the body staying whole after partings,
though unable to be located

as much of a metamorphosis, so much of a being


(poem published in the volume "Sentic", Vinea Publishing House, Bucharest, 2009, p. 18. English translation: Corina Gina Papouis)