The expected one came
(his face bathed in light)
and I let him go
The unwanted one came and I gave him
body and blood, bread and salt
A thought shot like a bullet through his brain:
“You have used me as a man”
And he turned his face from me
I withered
(the candy-sweet rose became a pressed flower)
I lost petal after petal
I no longer expected anything. When
there appeared a sort of man. Skinny
(he had one less rib)
“This is how I am”
“Yes. I am the true one”
I’ve carried this scent inside me since you were born
*This poem was translated by Adam J. Sorkin.
Floarea Țuțuianu [pronounced “Tsu-tsu-ya'-nu”] graduated from the Nicolae Grigorescu Institute of the Fine Arts in Bucharest and is now a member of both the Artists’ Union and the Writers’ Union of Romania. She has published four books of poetry, The Fish Woman (1996), Libresse oblige (1998), The Lion Mark (2000), and a collected volume with new poems, The Art of Seduction (2002). Țuțuianu works as a graphic designer at the Romanian Cultural Institute Publishing House in Bucharest, where she lives. Poems of hers have come out in The Marlboro Review, Artful Dodge, Turnrow, Tampa Review, Puerto del Sol, New Letters, 5 AM, Poetry International, Blood Orange Review, Modern Poetry in Translation, Diode, Sleet, St. Petersburg Review, and The Dirty Goat.
Adam J. Sorkin’s recent books of translation include Memory Glyphs, a volume of three Romanian prose poets (Twisted Spoon, 2009), Mircea Ivănescu’s lines poems poetry, translated with Lidia Vianu (University Press of Plymouth [U.K.], 2009), and Carmen Firan’s Rock and Dew (Sheep Meadow Press, 2010, translated mostly with Firan). Forthcoming are Ioan Es. Pop’s No Way Out of Hadesburg (University Press of Plymouth, 2010) and Rodica Draghincescu’s A Sharp Double-Edged Luxury Object (Cervena Barva, 2012).