Two Lines 12: Bodies
Fall 2005
Out of Print
Here in your orchard, Father, such peace.
The cherry trees blush and coyly offer
their firm flesh and sweet light.
—from “Crucified Against the May Sky” by Liliana Ursu, translated from the Romanian by Adam J. Sorkin, Tess Gallagher, & Liliana Ursu
Two Lines, Issue 12: Bodies features writing from 21 different countries—from Austria to Vietnam—and 17 different languages. The pieces in this issue are as varied as they are strange: from a starving Hungarian prisoner’s fantasies—not of creamy thighs but of a juicy pork chop—to a physically challenged Swiss boy’s fantastic voyages of imagination; from stark Estonian poems about a man trapped and alone to a Swedish meditation on celestial bodies and our part in making the earth’s music; from lemon-scented sex in an Iranian poem to a dark Czech vision of a vampire.
Table of Contents
Poetry
Dressing Up in Her Poems—An Essay with Translations from Vietnamese
Translated from Vietnamese by John Balaban
Killing Him: A Radio Play
Translated from Hebrew by Hadar Makov-Hasson and Adam Seelig
Fragments from "The Prohibited Territory"
Translated from Estonian by Terje Saar-Hambazaza
Signs
Translated from Spanish by John Oliver Simon
Mozart's Third Brain
Translated from Swedish by Rika Lesser
The rain that falls just once a year... | I'll swim toward you... | Do you still know the sweet scent of plantain trees...
Translated from French by Zack Rogow
Crucified Against the May Sky
By Liliana Ursu
Vampire
Translated from Czech by Deborah Garfinkle
Fiction
Other
Aged Geisha and "Young" Kabuki Actors
By Baba Bunko
Translated from Japanese by William J. Farge S. J.
Without Prescription: Radio Scripts
Translated from Bulgarian by Zoya Marincheva