icy wind
nicks to the bone:
inside the midnight deli
inside her loose wool coat
the naked hooker
Streetlights: Poetry of Urban Life, 2009
Marian Olson
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
冰冷的風
刺入全身骨頭：
午夜熟食店內
在她寬鬆的羊毛大衣裡面
是位赤裸的妓女
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
冰冷的风
刺入全身骨头：
午夜熟食店内
在她宽松的羊毛大衣里面
是位赤裸的妓女
Bio Sketch
Marian
Olson lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She has published hundreds of
poems— mainstream, haiku, senryu, haibun, and tanka—nationally and
internationally for thirty years. She is the author of seven poetry
books, including the first-place Snapshot winner Consider This and the HSA Merit prize winner Desert Hours.
Combined with the technique of syntactic parallelism, Marion’s tanka effectively builds, poetic phrase (ku)/line by poetic phrase (ku)/line, to an emotionally poignant ending that has the most weight and reveals the theme of prostitution. And on a second reading, the symbolically-rich icy wind not only cuts to the bone, but also cuts open the facade that becomes her identity.
ReplyDeleteBelow is my tanka on a similar theme:
ReplyDeletecold wind
from passing trailer trucks --
the sex worker
looks at her reflection
in a roadside puddle
Atlas Poetica, 23, 2015