I Breathe Out V a Shoelace or a Zipper
Răzvan Ţupa
translated from the Romanian by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet

in the sky above you morning shatters into millions of colored shoelaces;
you could take this as a promise, as the eroticism of space
ablaze high above your head, it would be too much but

otherwise the textile light of the welding torch
would wrap in a package what remains mine
not including the workers by the tramline gesturing obscenely at the women riding

that, too, would be a poem or even
a morning
you’ll never see again
like a final explosion, thanks be to God,
all the objects we stuff with our intent of closeness

Răzvan Ţupa is the author of three books: Fetish (2001, which won the Mihai Eminescu First Poetry Book Award), Fetish – A Romanian Book of Pleasure (2003), and Romanian Bodies (2005).  He was included in the U.K. anthology No Longer Poetry: New Romanian Poetry (2007). He has recorded video poetry, served as an editor of the film section for Time Out magazine, produced Poetry. The Power, a feature film on young poets, and was founding editor of the poetry journal Versus/Versum.

Adam J. Sorkin recently published Memory Glyphs: Three Prose Poets from Romania (Twisted Spoon Press, 2009); Mircea Ivănescu’s lines poems poetry (University of Plymouth Press,UK, translated with Lidia Vianu; and Rock and Dew, poems by Carmen Firan (The Sheep Meadow Press, 2010, translated with the poet). Ioan Es. Pop’s No Way Out of Hadesburg is forthcoming fall of 2010.

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