From Russia to Lithuania, a Strawberry - Laura Cesarco Eglin

The only Russia I know

is in klubnika – a strawberry

is not the same when I tear

the first layer of red skin

knowing that Russia vanished with

the little seeds the tongue sometimes

touches, certain

words, but in others you don’t have

Russia, although there’s something in the way

my grandfather holds a strawberry

to give me, closing his eyes, both of us

but I know that all the time he is

thinking of me who have never been

to Russia, or to Lithuania, and eat

strawberries as if I were still there

---

Laura Cesarco Eglin (born 1976) Uruguay

Translated by Laura Chalar

Source: Modren Poetry in Translation: The Tangled Route, 2015 Number 3