in what language should I speak to you, sun
so you’ll rise tomorrow for my child, so you’ll
rise and stimulate the growth of our food,
circulation,
how should I sing it for my child
how should I sing to you, planet, so you’ll forgive me
for giving birth to appetite, for giving birth
to a question
hooked onto nothing, how can I win
the generosity of the creator-bacteria
how can I win clean rain air glucose
la la
so we’ll lie down and fall asleep, so we’ll wake up
so we’ll lie down and fall asleep, so we’ll wake up,
gravitation:
tfi
lala
so you’ll lie us down and fall us asleep, and wake us—
Psalm III
w jakim języku mam do ciebie mówić, słońce
żebyś jutro wstało dla mojego dziecka żebyś
wstało i pobudziło tkanki pokarmów
krążenie
jak mam to zaśpiewać dla mojego dziecka
jak mam tobie śpiewać planeto żebyś wybaczyła
że urodziłam głód, że urodziłam
pytanie
zaczepione o nic, jak sobie zaskarbić
szczodrobliwość stworzycielek-bakterii
czysty deszcz powietrze glukozę
la la
że ułożymy się i zaśniemy, że się obudzimy
że ułożymy się i zaśniemy, że się obudzimy
grawitacjo:
tfi
la la
że nas ułożysz i zaśniesz, i że nas obudzisz—
What Keeps Us
Poems to Read in Community
Inspired by C. D. Wright’s poem “What Keeps,” we offer Julia Fiedorczuk’s “Psalm III,” translated from the Polish by Bill Johnston, as part of a twenty-poem selection from poems we’ve featured in 2024—poems, like bread, that one might pass across the table—to a loved one, or to oneself.
Read editor Lloyd Wallace’s introduction to the collection and statements from our staff readers here. Read poems by selecting below.
Throwback Night, Midway Skating Rink
The sun dipped already, but we sweating, edges ribboned under
summer’s breath.
My Father Walks Out of an English Book and Into an English Field
It was not long after the war—
and just saying after the war places him
Half-Life in Exile
I’m forever living between Aprils.
The air here smells of jacarandas and lime;
Country Song (Memory of Rain)
A bruise is a promised haunting.
“Come, just this once,” I ask, disingenuously. I mean “a thousand times.”
At the Gellert Baths, Budapest
Here in the body museum,
women speaking Hungarian
rinse one another with buckets of water,
As Though It Were a Small Child
I wake up these days, a new mother again, watching,
waiting, to understand what to offer, how to serve, by which I
mean,