Poems from the poetry book journeys (kelionių)
Translated by Agnieška Leščinska
Truman
It feels like I’m just another Truman,
Chased by hidden cameras because sometimes
Everything, every good thing, seems so unreal.
It’s because they always said, laugh in the morning, cry in the evening.
And besides, everyone pities this little girl.
They wear their artificial smiles, give phony compliments
And keep wanting something from you –
To solve a math equation, to cover for sleeping over
At a boy’s place, to not betray
The juiciest school conspiracy.
So they lie. And lie. And lie.
Truman is becoming more like Vytautas Vargalys[1] – so close
To paranoia, you begin to suspect that all those other conspiracies
Are against you and everything’s directed at you.
My Narcissus –
He stares and stares and stares at his reflection, unable
To believe that he is enough, that he is.
Inheritance
I still act out of hunger, out of absence,
I drive myself with a whip of boundless plains.
Endless journeys exist.
Conquered wastelands are too small.
Little girl, Soviet blood alcohol content is still running
Through your blood – moderation is the main measure –
I try to teach her.
I wish for sober homes,
For the Minnesota Model, which could purge
These toxins, heal my anxiety-driven
Headaches, and all those Siberias and deficiencies
That our grandmothers endured.
All those lines for meat, for bananas – I’m still standing in them.
The products are different, and so is hunger. I tell myself I want
To act out of fullness, out of the full moon and fulfillment.
In the new-age detox program, I take the useless
Antidote, getting injected once, maybe more.
Even at language, even at home,
This inherited being finds a way through,
Unfinished high school, constant voices that say
That if you don’t try harder, you’ll be thrown out of
Your home, out of your language and the hearts of those you love.
So go, because we need to get to the end of the line
To get another piece of bologna sausage.
A Desire for Sweets Before Death
I speak to my grandmother for the last time in the hospital.
I’m 24, my son is 3 months old.
I’m full of life, milk streaming from the alveoli
Of my nipples. I show her pictures of my boy
And serve her pie. She hasn’t been eating
Anything sweet for a while. I read the signs,
But I’m full of life, eager to return to my family.
Grandma tells me how cruel the nurses are here,
How they force her into the hospital tub. Until now,
I was the one who bathed her – we’d place a stool
In her bath back at home, and it was much better
than a stranger’s hands, better than a special chair.
And now, at 38, I keep recalling our bath times.
My hands touching her moles, her wrinkly skin,
Her breasts and abdomen sunken with gravity.
Nothing disgusting, but perfect horror and beauty,
Only life itself, streaming through the water, my hands, our bodies.
Will you bathe me, my son? Will you not shy from the organs
That held you close, that fed you, cursed and blessed you?
Will I crave pies? Will you bake me a traditional rye loaf
For my first marriage?
I hope we still have time to prepare everything.
I hope I can bring this horror and beauty to the feast.
My Uncle from America
My first memory of a journey
Is my grandfather’s brother visiting from the USA.
Every year, we waited for Uncle, a prelate. White tablecloths,
Festive steaks, the fragrant guest chamber.
He would take us to the Vilijampolė market,
Where we picked out dresses and shoes.
His imported packages filled with fancy
Jeans, sneakers, sparkly sweaters,
Fabrics we had never seen. I recall Grandma
Hesitant to try the artificial honey, and she saved
The sweets with macadamia nuts for special occasions.
My sister was the first to chew
The Donald Duck gum. I hid mine under my pillow.
It’s strange now, how back then, while waiting for my uncle
We had to fill out endless documents, undergo
Inspections. Especially in the first years of the Thaw.
And today, my 13-year-old son travels
The world, competing with Europe’s best
Athletes, and then during breaks, he sinks baskets
Against the Dutch team.
Where am I – between then and now?
Walking the streets of Vienna, I start to think that
While raising a child of the world,
What I long for most are my journeys.
Journey “I”
In every place I’ve been, I’ve left
Small fragments of my skin,
Sweat-drenched paths, pore discharge,
My stench and seven-mile-long steps.
They say, when cities doze off, mountains awaken –
You hear how in your heart
Quiet melancholy sprouts – even though you’re still here,
You already miss the greenery, the citrus.
I left you my settled dreams,
The gnashing of my teeth, the ache of my three-prawned nerve.
Now – only Neptune has his trident –
I feel the water caressing, soothing me.
I replicate small pieces of DNA,
Self-replicate through photographs, and
When I return, I remember how we hesitated
To kiss at the bridge, as we sailed with the Venetian gondolier.
I left behind the evidence of torment in a lot of places:
In the miraculous amphitheater, a dull note scribbled
For the Wailing Wall. The fountain of desire has
Washed away my abundance of expectations. Longing is all that remains.
In each country I barter.
I gather, I let go, trading packets of pills
For smog and snow, for plains and jungles.
I’m cursed to long for my past self,
My altered self, my enthusiasm and the self who first
Beheld the Hindu sanctuary, your laughing eyes,
The kiss that never happened when the boatman took us across.
Guess the Woman’s Name
I still observe and admire the woman and her covered hair,
Her face veiled, eyes glowing, seductive. In her hands
A Louis Vuitton suitcase, silk – the beauty of a secret.
I’m two months pregnant and we’re in Morrocco. The beautiful woman
Speaks to us on the bus, inviting us to spend the night.
Carpets, a low table, steaming food.
Her visible hope:
She dreams of becoming the second wife, living together with us
In Europe, cooking, warming my husband’s bed,
Raising my son.
She invites me to a women-only sauna.
I refuse. As my future husband and I sleep on mattresses,
I tell him I don’t like it here.
I remember her old father, the cold water from the hose.
The beauty I failed to see at the time, but now, I recall it –
Her hospitality, modest yet respectable, her home,
And I regret not being swept away by the idea of a second wife.
Where will you take me, woman whose name I do not remember?
I keep wondering in the sleepless nights that if I call,
Would you come? The same as before, putting me to sleep
With your swaying hips and jangling bracelets.
You would descend on a Lithuanian cloud, and we’d blend
Our countries’ folklore. I hope you become someone’s first wife, and in the midst
Of airport loneliness, you bewitch fair-skinned foreign women
With your uncovered hair and open face, with eyes wide in wonder.
Journey “V”
They greet us with allamanda wreaths –
A ritual for tourists – the flowers drift in sacred
Rivers and lakes, but with a paid ticket
You earn the right to proclaim the local beliefs: how tall
The Durga statue stands, how many line up to take a picture with it.
We say we seek authenticity
And pluck the allamandas – no hotel in the world
Has everything included – because when swimming through mountains
And palms, carefully tracing the craters of extinct volcanoes,
Observing the rising and falling tides of the country’s economy
In the Sugar Museum (the guide had brough us there),
Buying tea laced with spices – but not very spicy,
Vanilla – that lost its scent, and we feel the melancholy of the tourist –
As if, in truth, we saw so little, as if summer in Mauritius
Unfolded with something vital still concealed
From our eyes. We keep counting the countries we visit –
But we have yet to learn how to travel – the deception of new lands,
Unfulfillments, the guilt of being the intruder, the nostalgia
For our homeland, as if it had been better to live an eternity
In the plains of our winter, it’s bitterness
So recognizable, so clear.
1. The protagonist of Vilnius Poker by Ričardas Gavelis. Vargalys spends several years being tortured in the Gulag and later is assigned to work in a library. He’s tormented by paranoia after what he has been through.
