Latvian Feature more poetry Photo of Liāna Langa by Deinats

Liāna Langa Translated by Margita Gailitis and J.C. Todd Galanteria N. 1. A woman between 38 and 45, maybe younger overweight by 30 kilos more or less, face puffed, trampled from lack of sleep dressed in mall-glitz, a shiny black leather coat — her fat, humanly-acquired, the carcass of her soul                                  on display in a smoke-filled dive “A real bitch,” thinks the alcho-naut sitting at a table. “No wonder she’s alone, barely noon, but she. . .” at the bar the woman orders “a brandy and something else” the bartender stares through her muddied flesh through the bar window at the slush-covered face of Brivibas Avenue reflected back in the naked leather, its shiny lure thrown out to catch small fish under ice, she sees the surface of the brandy iced over with a crackling, roach-colored net countless small hooks push from her underbelly, armpits, shoulders                                                                                                    outward— but they’re without bait, bare— flies and worms have died in the cold 2. 10 square meters of the bar to cross to get to the table in the corner sit down, drink, settle in her cage I’ll pour a double shot into myself and I’ll become a canary! a pink kitten, a meow, the very first letter in the alphabet! YOU ALL GO TO HELL, it’s my holiday DON’T STARE AT ME, I’m your tomorrow. 3. mountains always remind me of the warm sea at whose shore I lazed happy and tanned people slid into water—flesh cathedrals, churches, temples sharing a joyful architectural detail: a behind I lazed happy and tanned at the edge of the sea, my holiday and life while mature fate barbecued shashliks on the corner of Jomas Street and clouds in the sky trained their biceps, now and then shielding the sun if you’ve ever felt too hot in this life, you start seeing things wrong or else slanted waves wash you into the sea at whose shore I lazed happy and tanned I continue to swim toward shore, but it’s so far an unreachable pedestal erected to lost freedom 4. an errant caramel cloud and a look from above cool and deceptive forces itself out of an ancient placenta to appear like a scar on a corpse’s face like pre-history etched in a wall of wind radiance on the forehead of a newborn child what once was the foundation now is in ruins weeds everywhere bitter and sharp 5. once an ice-cream princess, yes she was was was and her ice-cream tears fell fell fell when boys with strong tongues came to drool over her they fell asleep beside her and snored, snored, snored and then the ice-cream princess grew thin thin thin in her center there was nothing and no god beside her no one remembers now if she was raspberry or crème brule but sometimes unseen ribs brush against us in the dark 6. life below ice has the fragrance of freesias and cod entrails fins tickle the throat and memories disappear in mishaps the cold is so warm you don’t want to go home and you— little ice-hole mermaid— how are you? the ice hole is round like the starved mouth of life gnashing its teeth, heaven grows tense the palms of life are powdered with baby talc but spilled in her sleeve, ominous black spit. 7. The all-night store is stuffy, and the clerk in a padded jacket, deaf. Santimes jingle in slot machines, bitterness settles in kefir packs. After midnight, a newcomer who has no one to call drops by to diffuse his madness. He buys a pack of Wallstreet, then begins to tell the deaf man: “I met her in a bar. The dark walked outside. O how the dark walked outside! Alcohol roared in my brain. Probably my cradle was hung under a table. But she had the eyes of a sea lion and swayed my mind.” The store clerk nods, loyal, ready to listen to anyone, shelving the recently delivered milk. “Parenthesis, parenthesis!” the newcomer exclaims. “My parenthesis. I lost them! I finally fell in love with a good-for-nothing in a dump! My lioness. We talked some and then she disappeared by stepping inside me. I drank till dawn. No longer in parenthesis! Flight, despair, joy! I stepped outside myself! Of my own accord, suddenly, aware and free! For the first time in my life, without limits, now I can. . ..” The deaf man didn’t see what happened next. He was told that the newcomer left, slipped on trash by the doorstep, then lit up a smoke. In the store window, the neon sign had waved like red algae in a strong current. The man had vanished in the fog, his body leaving a rose-colored scar with fresh stitches round it. 8. Galanteria N. wants to clothe her story in soft, musty words write on what’s tarnished, scratch in the flesh of rust write alongside the quantum theory, alongside formulas for the logic of dreams, in the deep                        mouth of rain write in the middle of a lump of fat, on the invoice for a soldier’s uniform, in the flames of a                        biography Galanteria N. whirls in a short snowflake skirt, whirls and loses her balance melts in cat’s fur, rises again to glisten in a poem-maker’s window the magical journey begins everywhere we are, always, wherever just sneeze, release your spirit, take hold of tender Galanteria she would like to stay STILL in soft, musty words but again and once more return to you embraces or parenthesis? who scrambles there like a bug? who wakes again in her arms? illusion or delusion? 9. Space has its scars, its splinters, its scabs, fairy tales and towers where unborn birds briefly rest and felled trees compose songs. Space has doors only the blind see, garden lamps where blood congeals shed for the nightmare and the dream, lit by a bat once every hour. There, as you climb an invisible stair, you look in the face of hours and pain now ended. And see the whirlwinds that lovers leave when they have gone, spirals turned by an incessant wind and blown through sheets toward us.