RTĘĆ, KAMIEŃ

first published in thanatos jeans

Nie wiedziałam wiele o świecie, miałam tylko wrażenie, że mówiłeś serio,
że pozwolisz zostać nastoletnim chłopcom w stodole, zbliżała się przecież burza
i małe koła rowerów grzęzły w piasku, nie pozwalając odjechać z koryta
piaszczystej drogi,

ubrani w cienkie, bawełniane koszulki i szerokie spodnie zostali chyba oderwani od żniw.

Chciałam zostać ich małą siostrzyczką, która będzie przynosić im wafle
smażonego mięsa i pokaże im, jak się używa
papierowych serwetek.

Ale kazałeś im odjechać, nagle, w ostatniej chwili,

pobiegłam na strych patrzeć, jak z trudem pchają rowery przez płynną rynnę drogi,
poczułam wilgoć, jak gdyby nagłą folię potu.

Oddalili się szybko, tuż za domem jest zakręt, zeszłam po krętych schodach,
byłeś w kuchni, ubrany w niebieski fartuch,
spojrzałeś na mnie z lekkim uśmiechem,

filtr zapachów i smaków - pomyślałam nagle.

MERCURY, STONE

I didn’t know much of the world, I just got the impression you weren’t kidding,
you’d really let the teenage boys stay in the barn, the storm was coming after all
and their little bike wheels floundered in the mud, trapping them in the trough
of the sandy road,

dressed in their thin, cotton shirts and wide trousers, they were likely pulled away from harvest.

I wanted to become their little sister, to bring them waffles
of fried meat, to show them how to use
the paper serviettes.

But you made them cycle away, suddenly, at the last minute,

I ran to the attic to watch them thrust the bikes across the gushing gutter of the road,
I felt wetness, like a sudden film of sweat.

They rode off quickly—right behind the house there’s a turn—I came down the winding stairs,
you were in the kitchen, wearing a blue apron,
looking at me with soft smile,

a filter of smells and flavours—my sudden thought.

Bartosz Konstrat (born in 1977 in Lublin) is a Polish poet, playwright, screenwriter and short story writer. He is the author of five poetry collections: thanatos jeans, traktaty konstrata (treatises of konstrat), samochody i krew (cars and blood), dzika kość (wild bone), encyklopedia utraconych szans (the encyclopaedia of lost chances) and własny holokaust (personal holocaust). His play Powietrze. Opowieść o kraju i planecie (Air. The Story of a Country and a Planet) premiered at Druga Strefa theatre in Warsaw. His poetry has been published in all the major literary journals in Poland, frequently winning prizes, including two nominations for the Silesius Poetry Award.

Dawid Mobolaji is a Polish-Nigerian literary translator, writer and medical doctor based in London. In 2023, he completed the Emerging Translator Mentorship programme at the National Centre for Writing in the UK. He was recently awarded the Travel Fellowship to the American Literary Translators’ Association. His translations have featured in Words Without Borders and Turkoslavia.