Contempo- rary Slovenian poetry 2 - Ljudmila

Drowned Love
Translated by Andrew
Zawacki and the author
You burn me, this is my weakness.
I admit: I can’t stand that everything,
everything —words and bodies— passes
from hand to hand. Like a walk
down to the three bridges, past bookstores
and the ornaments almost invisible
on each façade, past the stains
on violins, shiny and hard
like madness, past the palaces
in no hurry to be restored,
an orchestra playing day after day
in another gazebo, another park,
when I lost my way among the streets
and wandered, ignorant, under the dome
of another sky, in another dream,
which threatens and seduces
just like you, you who lure
a trout to your hips, you who foretell
how memories twist in the genes.
You burn me, this is my weakness.
Like an omen I can’t dismiss.
A hand to another hand. Tears,
I know this too well, tears
don’t run down the cheeks,
they’re oil a downpour can’t wash off
and high tide breaks against the soul
in vain. There’s nothing else I can do:
I give you up to the current,
and I do it out of love. You vanish
into pain, a strange joy, and nothing.
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