Shell
Since the time I moved away from you,
I slide along the ground like a snail
on whose slimy body fragments
of my shell still stick.
Behind me, I leave an insentient trail of ooze.
A million hotels in the world—of ice, ivory, rock salt—
washed in the seas of foreign tongues, faces, habits—
would hide me, would open their doors.
I would return to where, twenty years ago, I prodded the dead jelly:
the color of water and limpid cloud.
On that beach, I did not yet wear my bikini top.
My fingers penetrated its formless body—
Plasticine.
To return would mean "to start everything anew",
to glue oneself together from the first words,
from the nails of one's toes.
There, where my heart was—a sharp shard of glass
over which muscle will forever weave its petals . . .
Until, with every pulse it will hurt less,
reminding me less: of guilt, origin, my native tongue.
Archeologist
Men, who won wars,
and courageous women, who crossed rivers of doubt—
a pile of bones and medallions on her desk.
Death domesticated—she arranges the mosaic of eternity
and plaits the braids of history's gray hair.
Frazzled, she blows her nose in the frayed sleeve of her sweater,
and continues to smooth the ballroom dress of non-being.
Climbing steps of recognition, this steward of the past,
in the department of history, Vilnius University,
doesn't feel anything in the morning on her way to work
when she passes the Europa Hotel—
where she once whispered a lover's name, now forgotten,
as he opened the gates of her legs.
from Stories About Love and Other Animals
Indrė Valantinaitė
translated from the Lithuanian by Rimas Uzgiris
Read the original in Lithuanian
Listen to the poems read in the original Lithuanian by the author:
Indrė Valantinaitė is a fresh voice in Lithuanian poetry. Her debut collection Žuvim ir lelijom (For Fish and Lilies) won the 2006 First Book Contest of the Lithuanian Union of Writers. Her second book Pasakos apie meilę ir kitus žvėris (Stories About Love and Other Animals) was published in 2011 and won the 2012 Young Jotvingian Prize at the Druskininkai Poetic Fall Festival; this is the most prestigious award for Lithuanian poets under thirty-five. In addition to being a poet, Valantinaitė is also a renowned singer. She studied at Vilnius University and The Vilnius Academy of Arts. She lives in Vilnius.
Rimas Uzgiris is a Lithuanian poet and translator writing in English. Born and raised in the United States, educated at UCSD, UW-Madison, Rutgers-Newark, he is the author of the poetry collections North of Paradise (Kelsay Books, 2019), and Tarp (Between; Kauko laiptai, 2019), a book of poems translated into Lithuanian, which was shortlisted for best poetry book of the year. He has translated seven poetry collections from Lithuanian, including Then What by Gintaras Grajauskas (Bloodaxe Books, 2018) and Vagabond Sun by Judita Vaičiūnaitė (Shearsman Books, 2018). He also translated the opera Sun & Sea, which won the Golden Lion at the 2019 Venice Biennale. His poetry has appeared in Barrow Street, Hudson Review, Poetry Daily, The Poetry Review, and other journals. Recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Grant and an NEA Translation Fellowship, he teaches at Vilnius University.
