Lina
Tartaria village, September 1946
Before the war she had a sewing machine.
Lina sewed new clothes at the sewing machine.
She drove the fabric under the needle
That was stomping on the white mash
Like a prickling stamp. Lina's fingers were safe.
Lina's fingers were the best in the village.
The village was like a ring,
Only better to fit the little finger.
Before the war, Lina slept on the clay stove.
At night, she slept with her legs apart.
And snored like a sewing machine.
Her breasts were blooming.
Before the war, stoves were functional.
Tiles of burnt glaze and gilded clay
Stuck on the outer walls wore the handcraft
Under heat. Minor obelisks, bas-reliefs
With heroes. Cows. Some flowers.
Before the war, bricks were made out of red-
tinted earth, dried three times and
Scorched in fire. They were a stack of rocks
Looking like virgins. The Turks came,
Then the Russians, held them by their wrists,
Broke some bones, lots of bites.
Surrounded by flames, the rocks sizzled.
The rocks turned brown.
Before the war, the earth grew weeds
Long-stemmed weeds for spinning thread,
For weaving fabrics.
Fabrics melted like clouds.
Sewing machines melted like bones.
Stoves and rocks crushed,
Under the siege of the foreign statures.
[First published in Flutter]
Roxana Cazan was born in Romania during communism and raised in its aftermath. Today, she is an MFA student in Creative Writing and a PhD student in English at Indiana University. She loves to write and to translate and wishes the entire world could benefit from a small glimpse at Romanian literature. Her poems have appeared in Harpur Palate, Sweaterbrain, Giles Corey Press, Stationaery Magazine, Flutter, The Innisfree Poetry Journal, Warpland Journal, Presence and The Madison Review. Her translations are forthcoming in Sojourn Journal and Portland Review.