Translator’s note: This poem is part of a longer work titled “Ancient Algorithms,” in which I remix, rewrite, and mistranslate my English translations of Ursula Andkjær Olsen’s poetry—sometimes with Olsen’s involvement, sometimes with other poets, and occasionally, like in this case, by myself. Aided by two decks of virtual cards in a game of online Spider Solitaire, I wove together and corrupted my translations of Olsen’s lines based on a set of self-imposed rules. The process gave birth to an eleven-legged creature named “Arachnoscientific Salvation,” a poem that is neither mine nor Olsen’s but belongs entirely to itself.

Arachnoscientific Salvation

a mistranslation of Ursula Andkjær Olsen’s trilogy
through a game of Spider Solitaire

at all times
a sensation of intricate webs
soft, possibly smooth, and heavy

life does not mean the same to them as it does to us:
i lie on their sweat-embroidery

i am allowed to be upset here
fully plugged in
glistening and inaccessible

i eat everything and i am everything:
a garden of marble
between ornamented walls