When we first tried to understand,
it was a brutal labour.
Our souls built muscle on anecdote,
strengthened with confession,
held up under the weight of grief.
We toasted new insights
in sour obscenities
when ***** was cheap.
Now it’s more like a wake or a party
where we fill friendly glasses,
bring out the guitars and the poetic lyre,
quietly stroking the strings;
a song for the dead we’re burying
all over again.
The truth can’t be recovered
from that misty territory,
the infinite distance of past misery.
That’s all, folks, I say,
but the husbands and wives say nothing.
by Galina Gamper, translated by Grainne Tobin