Latvian Feature more poetry Photo of Liāna Langa by Deinats

Liāna Langa Translated by Margita Gailitis and J.C. Todd Galanteria N. 1. A woman between 38 and 45, maybe younger overweight by 30 kilos moreor less, face puffed, trampled from lack of sleep dressed inmall-glitz, a shiny black leather coat — her fat,humanly-acquired, the carcass of her soul                                on display in a smoke-filleddive “A real bitch,” thinks the alcho-naut sitting at a table.“No wonder she’s alone, barely noon, but she. . .” at the bar the woman orders “a brandy and something else” the bartender stares through her muddied flesh through the barwindow at the slush-covered face of Brivibas Avenue reflectedback in the naked leather, its shiny lure thrown out to catch smallfish under ice, she sees the surface of the brandy iced over with acrackling, roach-colored net countless small hooks push from herunderbelly, armpits, shoulders                                                                                             outward— but they’re without bait, bare— flies and worms have diedin the cold 2. 10 square meters of the bar to cross to get to the table in thecorner sit down, drink, settle in her cage I’ll pour adouble shot into myself and I’ll become a canary! a pink kitten, ameow, the very first letter in the alphabet! YOU ALL GO TOHELL, it’s my holiday DON’T STARE AT ME, I’m your tomorrow. 3. mountains always remind me of the warm sea at whose shore I lazed happy and tanned people slid intowater—flesh cathedrals, churches, temples sharing a joyfularchitectural detail: a behind I lazed happy and tanned at theedge of the sea, my holiday and life while mature fate barbecuedshashliks on the corner of Jomas Street and clouds in the skytrained their biceps, now and then shielding the sun if you’ve everfelt too hot in this life, you start seeing things wrong orelse slanted waves wash you into the sea at whose shore I lazedhappy and tanned I continue to swim toward shore, but it’s sofar an unreachable pedestal erected to lost freedom 4. an errant caramel cloud and a look from above cool and deceptive forces itself out of an ancient placenta to appear like a scar on acorpse’s face like pre-history etched in a wall of wind radiance on the forehead of a newborn child what once was thefoundation now is in ruins weeds everywhere bitter and sharp 5. once an ice-cream princess, yes she was was was and her ice-cream tears fell fell fell when boys with strongtongues came to drool over her they fell asleep beside her andsnored, snored, snored and then the ice-cream princess grewthin thin thin in her center there was nothing and no god besideher no one remembers now if she was raspberry or crème brule butsometimes unseen ribs brush against us in the dark 6. life below ice has the fragrance of freesias andcod entrails fins tickle the throat and memories disappear inmishaps the cold is so warm you don’t want to go home andyou— little ice-hole mermaid— how are you? the icehole is round like the starved mouth of life gnashing its teeth,heaven grows tense the palms of life are powdered with baby talc but spilled in her sleeve, ominous black spit. 7. The all-night store is stuffy, and the clerk in a padded jacket,deaf. Santimes jingle in slot machines, bitterness settles in kefirpacks. After midnight, a newcomer who has no one to call drops by to diffuse his madness. He buys a pack of Wallstreet, then begins to tell the deaf man: “I met her in a bar. The dark walked outside. O how the dark walkedoutside! Alcohol roared in my brain. Probably my cradle was hungunder a table. But she had the eyes of a sea lion and swayed mymind.” The store clerk nods, loyal, ready to listen to anyone,shelving the recently delivered milk. “Parenthesis, parenthesis!” the newcomer exclaims. “Myparenthesis. I lost them! I finally fell in love with a good-for-nothingin a dump! My lioness. We talked some and then she disappeared bystepping inside me. I drank till dawn. No longer in parenthesis! Flight, despair, joy! I stepped outside myself! Of my own accord, suddenly,aware and free! For the first time in my life, without limits, now I can. . ..” The deaf man didn’t see what happened next. Hewas told that the newcomer left, slipped on trash by the doorstep, thenlit up a smoke. In the store window, the neon sign had waved likered algae in a strong current. The man had vanished in the fog, hisbody leaving a rose-colored scar with fresh stitches round it. 8. Galanteria N. wants to clothe her story in soft, musty words writeon what’s tarnished, scratch in the flesh of rust write alongside the quantum theory, alongside formulas for the logic ofdreams, in the deep                        mouth of rain write in the middle of a lump offat, on the invoice for a soldier’s uniform, in the flames of a                        biography Galanteria N. whirls in a short snowflake skirt, whirls and loses herbalance melts in cat’s fur, rises again to glisten in a poem-maker’swindow the magical journey begins everywhere we are, always, wherever justsneeze, release your spirit, take hold of tender Galanteria she would like to stay STILL in soft, musty words but again and oncemore return to you embraces or parenthesis? who scrambles therelike a bug? who wakes again in her arms? illusion ordelusion? 9. Space has its scars, its splinters, its scabs, fairy tales andtowers where unborn birds briefly rest and felled trees composesongs. Space has doors only the blind see, garden lampswhere blood congeals shed for the nightmare and the dream, litby a bat once every hour. There, as you climb an invisible stair, you look in the face ofhours and pain now ended. And see the whirlwinds that loversleave when they have gone, spirals turned by an incessant wind and blown through sheets toward us.