You are afraid
don’t be afraid
be afraid
don’t be afraid
no one births you
only my longing
my angellonging
and what I see is green arms and hands
in your abandoned eye which is given
the angelgreen slime to drink
so that you can see the only
flying dead who births you
mounted in light
collapsing in darkness’s nothing
other than arms and hands
and the breast wedged into the green slime’s
staffbody bent over the just recently
green word
lies on the fourth step the plea to hold : your sacrament :
the just recently green twelve-year-old fetus
who cradles death
when it is nothing other than abandoned
it must be the four angelgreen pairs of wings
born out of each other’s wings born from
the no-one-wing’s hovering on this step
dream in orange circle movements
places the fragile thin white wings
in the fragile thin white wing’s scent
the green staff’s slime
fetus draws the picture
the word
the division of the green sacrament
to reach the white fluttering breast’s
accumulation in a
nothing
when you are afraid
don’t be afraid
the word splits into staff and staff
and staff
dissolves nothing in this nothing
other than staff and staff
and staff
and steps
nearing nearer nearer
angel places the fragile thin white wings
in the scent of your fragile thin white wing
you are stone that will fall
into your fetus
in the word that you see and draw
the word will dissolve in
angelgreen white of no one born
fetusstaffs
don’t be afraid
(Translated by Johannes Göransson)
Eva Kristina Olssonis the author of several books of poetry and plays, as well as a dancer, performer and filmmaker. She has published many books—including The Crime (1988), Eiderwhite (2011), and the verse plays Antigone’s Face Niobe’s Labyrinth (2013). This excerpt is from her critically acclaimed book The Angelgreen Sacrament (2017), which Aase Berg called “Torturously beautiful… the best poetry collection of the year” in Dagens Nyheter. The collection will be published in translation later this year by Black Square Editions.
Johannes Göranssonis the author of eight books, including POETRY AGAINST ALL, The Sugar Book and Transgressive Circulations: Essays on Translation, and the translator of several poets, including Aase Berg, Ann Jäderlund, Helena Boberg and Kim Yideum.