Translations from the French
3 pieces from: Les mots endormis (i)
THE CRAZY INDEX FINGER
Something itches in the center of my stomach, I am too comfortable to move and I stand the annoyance until I can manage no longer and compel one of my fingers to advance and scratch.
At first it is good, better than if I had scratched at once, and I authorize the index finger to linger. With satisfied skin I think of withdrawing my finger. I want to and ask it to, but it doesn't obey. It continues to skate inspite of me, first with malice, soon savagely.
Then the spot begins to smart. A sudden and very sharp pain tells me: the flesh is alive. I wish with all my strength that the finger stop, come back gently to its place. I beg, I promise, I threaten. No success. Mechanically, bolting, it executes its small dance in depth, tearing muscles, nerves and veins, drinking the blood. Upon hearing a sawing noise, I say to myself it has found a bone. Then a terrible idea forms in my head: to cut off the impudent finger from behind while it works away.
I get up, open a drawer and take out a knife, sneak it up and strike it down hard on the crazy index finger. The finger falls, stirred by a few jerks, then its naughty expression is extinguished. I feel better, in spite of my sadness over being crippled in future.
Translated by Ellen Nations
Page(s) 57
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The