Uljana Wolf Biography

oh the skein of raggle-taggle village dogs: trickly
tails, stubbly legs, tough teeth fletching at the fence

yours is the street, the dust on an asphalt hem
yours the resonant night in the dormant valley
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my dear: this is
our pothole love
our little border traffic
awkward under tongues
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who says that poems are like these dogs
surrounded by their own echo at the village core

of the waiting and pawing at half moon
of the stubborn marking of language terrains -
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mister, we've been to the zoo, but it was closed, wir wollten die entblößung unserer zähne trainieren, studieren das stimmhafte sehnen zum beispiel der zebras, weil alles zueinander anders sagt, mal so und mal zoo. zuletzt entdeckten wir, verzagt am zäun, ein echsenset. wir nannten sie ginger und fred. it seems, you said, they never called the whole thing off. das gab uns reichlich Stoff für den heimweg.
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mister, we've been to the zoo, but it was closed. we wanted to practice baring our teeth, to study the voiced musings of the zebras, say, since everything says everything some other way, or two, or zoo. at the gate's zenith or azimuth we espied a set of lizards. we dubbed them ginger and fred. it seems they never called the whole thing off, you said. and this food for thought fed us all the way home.

Translated by Susan Bernofsky
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