Krystyna Dąbrowska

trans. by Mira Rosenthal

First-FLoor Windows

First-floor windows along the street.
Something constantly takes place in them.
Yesterday, in one, the corner of a closet occurred,
in another, a small cross above the daybed,
and right after, a flower’s long leaves with red underbellies.
A few days ago in one of these windows
I caught a glass in the act on a table
and then an ashtray behind the sheer curtain.
If, in the slit of the drapes, there is no head getting ready
no elbow, no arch of an arm,
you can count on the ceiling ensuing 
openly in fluorescent light or stealthily in semi-darkness,
count on walls to come to pass and doors to other rooms.
Or a T-shirt hung
on the handle of an open window—
it began this morning when I walked by
and goes on glowing as I return.
The next window still has not recovered from
a hand reaching out for a slice of melon.
And in the next, there looks to be a man
standing at the bus stop on the other side.

Krystyna Dąbrowska is the author of four books of poetry, most recently Ścieżki dźwiękowe (Soundtracks, 2018), and the winner of two of the most prestigious Polish literary prizes: the Wisława Szymborska Award and the Kościelski Prize. Her poems have been translated into numerous languages and anthologized widely. English translations of her work have appeared recently in Ploughshares, Harpers, The Los Angeles Review, The Threepenny Review, Tupelo Quarterly, New England Review, and elsewhere. She lives and works in Warsaw.

Poet and translator Mira Rosenthal is a past NEA and Stegner fellow, and her work appears in such journals as Poetry, Ploughshares, Guernica, Harvard Review, Oxford American, and A Public Space. Her first book of poems, The Local World (Kent State, 2011), received the Wick Poetry Prize. Her honors include a PEN/Heim Translation Fund Award, a Fulbright Fellowship, a grant from the American Council of Learned Societies, and residencies at Hedgebrook and The MacDowell Colony. She teaches creative writing and contemporary literature at Cal Poly State University. www.mirarosenthal.com.