Two poems by Alina Stefanescu

What I Sought in Bucharest, Summer of 1990

I came to talk Plotinus, Ceausescu, revolution,
was given Cioran and everything, everything

happened in the cradle of that language where I first
heard love you, soft cadences of kisses, a mother tongue.

Any fruit promised a taste of marvel, of wine or blood
who could say which if transubstantiation is possible

If I wanted both, if I wanted everything for an almighty dollar.
Teenaged boys hawked Levis and George Michael bootlegs

on linden-laced sidewalks. Sudden poets left their verse
on cafe napkins to be published by sunlight.

I wanted to know how my parents defected but
everything (everything) collaborated against accounting.

Conquered by clematis and fresh-struck diesel
I fell into love, rubbed my te iubesc over park benches.

I came to know how to leave what you
love and come back, live.
 

Ravage

clear-cut the trees that sheltered
these naked bodies
before love became a word

we were legible
saplings. limbs tangle
for less than a bloom

on my cheeks, rub-marks of
your recent stubble
leave me branded

like bark, notched down
with deer antler. who
cares if the forest is gone

in this house
we burn
branches

stitch sheets
from fallen leaves