kreisau, haziary
how did you take me how in this valley
how do you shoo me between oaks
strictly speaking you november thrust
me onto your white fog-packed breast
or did i say chest a ramschackle box
a cage with garden and misty kitsch
in which an old bird on the pole sits
half winter half lace-shaped valance
how did you take me how in this valley
how do you shoo me between oaks
your wheezing breath in allees braids
damper nets in branches wrapping labyrinths
half-blind i’m left in your rib-light
and giddy beloved as if you had
woven the fogfence forever around
the bird your floating particle heart
Uljana Wolf is a German poet and translator. She published four books of poetry in German, exploring the poetics of translation and the ever-shifting space between language, as well as numerous translations of poetry by Erín Moure, NourbeSe Philip, LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, Christian Hawkey, Eugene Ostashevsky, Eugeniusz Tkaczyszyn-Dycki, and others. English translations of her work appeared in four chapbooks and in Subsisters: Selected Poems, translated by Sophie Seita (Belladonna* 2017). Her latest publication is a collection of essays and talks, Etymologischer Gossip (kookbooks 2021), from which the two short pieces are included here. (Photo credit: © Villa Massimo Alberto Novelli)
