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Poetry

The Promise

By Ales Debeljak
Translated from Slovenian by Andrew Zawacki & Ales Debeljak

I don’t look over my shoulder, no idea
where I’m going and not an ounce of fear,
falling like fluff from an eiderdown quilt
and piercing the afternoon air, real as an hour
of solitude or the fragrance of a certain herb:
my wounds are healed over and all five senses
in sync, harmonized to the birds and the sky,
the grimy wall of an underpass with graffiti
scratched in a child’s hand, announcing
I was here. But not only here, my lord,
as you know, I go where you want me to be-
tonight, for instance, I am a wave
you push across Stari trg, underground
through a parking garage, over the bank
of a lazy green river and over the zeal
and drawing desk of another architect.
“Come,” a whisper says, and again
I flood the channel, at one with the dark
that beats above the city and the steppe,
like the pillow of someone unable to sleep
you smooth and soften for him,
lying along the world as it slowly goes out.

English

I don’t look over my shoulder, no idea
where I’m going and not an ounce of fear,
falling like fluff from an eiderdown quilt
and piercing the afternoon air, real as an hour
of solitude or the fragrance of a certain herb:
my wounds are healed over and all five senses
in sync, harmonized to the birds and the sky,
the grimy wall of an underpass with graffiti
scratched in a child’s hand, announcing
I was here. But not only here, my lord,
as you know, I go where you want me to be-
tonight, for instance, I am a wave
you push across Stari trg, underground
through a parking garage, over the bank
of a lazy green river and over the zeal
and drawing desk of another architect.
“Come,” a whisper says, and again
I flood the channel, at one with the dark
that beats above the city and the steppe,
like the pillow of someone unable to sleep
you smooth and soften for him,
lying along the world as it slowly goes out.

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