Baseine: in the swimming pool (Lithuanian); Bas: quietly (French); Sein: to be (German) For more Poetry from Lithuania

Neringa Abrutyte Translated by Egle Verseckaite The Swimming Pool You need to swim for a long time and get your eyes filled with water, so that when you closed your eyes before sleep you'd see an azure bottom that, together with spirit-clear water would soothe your soul. But in such a sky there is no depth. And the soul itself is only a yellowish little ray, something for which it's easy to be quietly: Ba-Sein-e: in a swimming pool. A swimming pool is better than drugs—I hear a colleague, whose phone call woke me up.—What did you do tonight?—I dropped off to sleep clasping Baudelaire's "Paris Spleen." —As I jumped up because of the plinking of the telephone, I felt that my fourth finger, the one I had put into the book instead of a marker, had become numb. Getting out of bed, I see one of my legs dragging on the ground like a lifeless bone. Sometimes it's good that phone calls wake you up: you just sit down and write about it? That man. . . "And after the swimming pool I wanted to die so much. . . " And this kind of writing is only swimming sinking, with a mouthful filled with golden bubbles, you calm down, blowing them out through a straw seized accidentally. Memories like zuckli chirr in your head. Now I'm going to drink some coffee. I throw a couple of saccharin-free granules into the coffee. Are you my woman?—he liked to ask being excited. —I was a foolish duck, you drake! —I'd retort now. If you were older, oooh! if you were a mature woman, you'd be so proud of me not needing any other except you. . . "OOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooh!" Enough. I want to swim much longer after that—otherwise I drown in absolute apathy. If you went out on the streets in such a condition, you'd spend lots of money. . . And friends? Not for that! I'm not going out on the streets. I've sort of decided to live in a right, or orderly, way. The swimming pool is my desire. True, I can't swim. Here I am floating by the very edge of the sidewall like a croaking fish. Tough men dive past me, seemingly hitting the bottom with their heads. My heavy body rolls out onto the dry land like a sea. Shivering with cold, I go to the sauna—I'll take a seat by the feverish stones. How well we understand each other! As if I were one of them. That's why I go to the swimming pool alone—to meet them. I like the hard and hot hearts of the saunas. Fiery pebbles. . . Their bodies are inviolable. They don't try to console me. Because of them you can't see those sitting beside you, those who draw the air in, inhaling the hissing anger of the stones. You need to swim for a long time, so that later you'll see for much longer— The azure, The azure freedom, running over the edge and filling your emptiness. . . By the way, you can't pee in the swimming pool. Reacting, chlorinated water would blush like shame, red as light blood. Maybe—a little wound would open in the swimming pool?