from “Elegy 011”
maybe because of the need to forget
I see death as a hindrance on the wheel of torture
a camphorated ointment for nervous fibers ends
I’m closer today to the tree for hanging the noose
from which God forbid you to taste
look vanitas vanitatum
Yorick’s head lies on your plate when you receive your alms
the candle the baked apple and the wheat porridge helping
*
look my child the soft carpet
my warm body upon which you step this sacred day
my soles are thin they stick to the red clay
I turn upon the potter’s wheel
my everlasting mentioning
like I was that’s how I’ll stay
a crumb of Eucharist bread on your lips
the first one and the last one
from “Friendship”
right now we stay together face to face at the round table
somewhere at Stonehenge
measuring the time necessary for light to run back and forth
between me and you
we both smile the same however much it hurts
because tears would divide us forever
like the sword separating Tristan and Isolde
same as all the others divided because they never betrayed
not even for the sake of their love
group photo with fishermen
it’s christmas dad
lend me once more your hand to compare ourselves
among the living people i ever touched
only your hand was bigger
if you want to we can go to the seashore hand in hand
to leap wave after wave together
or you can take me to the puppet theater
where the orange tiger swallows pancakes
while we’re clapping along with our big hands
this year i didn’t bake home bread and
i didn’t burn candles
i simply crouched with half-opened eyes
leaning against high cushions
over a cross scratched with my nails on the bed sheets
lying in wait
fishing like you dad
sometimes hours other times days
go by without any catch
apart from your pale and slippery smile
in the last photograph
dad
why on earth didn’t you put aside the fishing rod
Although she wrote her first poems in primary school, Cristina M. Moldoveanu, born and living in Bucharest, began to write poetry and short stories again only when she was 35 years old. Since 2010 she also writes haiku and translates her works into English. Her haiku and poems were published in various anthologies, e-zines or poetry journals in Romania and abroad, such as Frogpond, The Barefoot Review, Up the Staircase, Off the Coast Quarterly.