TRANSLATION
by Rachel Kaufman
Culled to bear, culled to bare sucked
shore, culled to smight
words from their place, to turn
this tired lake as it swims
past my sight.
Culled to farm, fern
and daffodil, underneath each vased
stem a wet dark falling flails
to learn. Culled by call,
for sheepskin, bear
claw, summertime corn
in its stalk. Culled stones,
washed in sea, maimed
to their places unmoving.
Culled here to there, where waves
break hymns upon their hearers.
Culled breath
as it falters and floors for
speed, gets bent. Culled
song, shout, for breaking
our panting. Culled pantomime,
in cadence caught, in a thread
plucked out and up.
Culled far voices, sunk
to almost gone, mist, the wailing ones’
dawn unheld as I pick them,
as I wring them out shy
over this cool sheet of glass.