Arndís Lóa Magnúsdóttir
Two poems translated from the Icelandic by Rachel Britton
while time makes its annual ring
in the cruciverbalist’s bark
you squirrel away languages
learn to ferry your feelings
words
carry stories of marine cables
from one world to another
he walks ahead
considerably ahead
september and
the pages of the thesaurus
have started to yellow
you fear they’ll soon fall out
—————————————
in a scientific journal
I came across an article
by a speech therapist
that describes how
to tie vocal cordsin all sorts of loops and bows
so it’s possible to sound
like a star
in a silent movie
you say
that language was born of pain
that the involuntary sound you make
when you can’t sleep on your back
is the source of language
we both know that this is music
Arndís Lóa Magnúsdóttir is a writer and translator from Reykjavík. She has published two books of poetry.
Rachel Britton is a writer and translator from New York, based in Iceland.