Hero Pose (Virasana)
Kathrine Sowerby
from One-Handed, curated by Jennifer Adcock and Rahul Bery
One-Handed is an anthology of experimental poetry translation by Scottish and Mexican poets (and their translators into English). The focus is very much on the process of translation, whereby each pair of poets produce their own versions of the same text. Poets were encouraged to be very free, and the results are as divergent as they are exciting. Edited by Jennifer Adcock and Rahul Bery.
--
All I really know is the sun
scratching through my jeans
at the knees like dental hooks:
Espantapajara’s arthritic roots.
She rolls on the wooden floor,
kneels before her husband, embracing
his legs, her stomach tightening.
No heaving, howling hurricane
in her head; she sits in lotus.
Her thighs face the moon,
its blinking eye.
Why copy next door’s stupor,
their sterile containers,
and weary progress?
(I remember descriptions, the colour
of Diego’s bruised and swollen knees.)
The child was the “Eye of the Storm” and spoke
from daylight with bright, upturned eyes.
Enlutecia, the snow outside sped up,
the umbilical cord lay twisted like wet socks
and salamanders.
Child,
my darling. I wanted to mourn when I saw you.
And he knew then, how much of me was worthless.
Kathrine Sowerby is a Glasgow based poet with a background in fine art. A graduate of Glasgow School of Art's MFA programme and Glasgow University's MLitt in Creative Writing, her poems have been widely published and awarded prizes including a New Writers Award from the Scottish Book Trust. Kathrine makes fourfold, a curated journal of short poetry. kathrinesowerby.com
