off the shore of oneself as in . . .

Minus One

Translated from the French by Marilyn Hacker

The outflow of your drifting—
up until now you’ve slid along the road

I would like
in a faraway language
to tell you what I don’t
understand 

**
Nothing pulls you back from doubt any longer
from obsession 
from seeding 
your body is amnesia   plural   futile   limpid
a disappearance
stands in for space
stands in for an emptiness
to circle round 

**
Not visible   the sense
slumbers teeters on the edge
you expect nothing of the hours
not the days returned 
not daybreak

Samira Negrouche

2019

Inside me, a family

^{“To walk in the world is to find oneself in a body without papers, not a citizen of anything but breath.”
—Kazim Ali, Silver Road}

born from small
waters. Each night,
I look for paper
to feed this first litter
from a slow continent.

Ching-In Chen

2021

Theories of Time and Space

You can get there from here, though
there’s no going home.

Everywhere you go will be somewhere
you’ve never been. Try this:

head south on Mississippi 49, one—
by—one mile markers ticking off

another minute of your life. Follow this
to its natural conclusion—dead end

Natasha Trethewey

2006

Poems

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off the shore of oneself as in . . .

Minus One

Inside me, a family

Theories of Time and Space

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