translated by David McDuff

My mother’s cousin feels my face, 
her eyes are beautiful, 
but unable to catch my gaze. 

I stand still, waiting, 
when she comes to visit, greets 
my little brother, my sister and me 
touches us, one by one. 

Her fingertips move 
in a pattern from forehead, temple, cheek, 
on over chin and throat, as if she could 
make my face awaken. 

I watch her face, 
while like bird’s feet her fingers 
run over mine, 
she closes her eyes, encircles it, 
probing. 

I see her smile now that she knows 
it’s me, knows how much 
I have grown, 
her fingers see me smile back. 

Pia Tafdrup (www.tafdrup.com) b. 1952. Danish poet and writer, member of The Danish Academy. She has received the Nordic Council’s Literature Prize in 1999 and the Nordic Prize in 2006 from The Swedish Academy. Pia Tafdrup has published 20 collections of poetry. Her first book When an Angel Breaks her Silence was published in 1981. Among others: The Salamander Quartet (2002-2012): The Whales in Paris (2002), Tarkovsky´s Horses (2006), The Migrant Birds’ Compass (2010) and Salamander Sun (2012). (Eng. Tarkovsky’s Horses & Other Poems 2010) and (Eng. Salamander Sun & Other Poems 2015).  Latest: The Five Senses: The Taste of Steel (2014), The Smell of Snow (2016), The Sight of Light (2018), The Sound of Clouds (2020) and The Touch of Skin (2022). The Taste of Steel & The Smell of Snow, Bloodaxe 2021.  She has also published a statement of her poetics, Walking over the Water, two plays and two novels. Her poems are translated into more than 30 languages in books, magazines, and anthologies. 

David McDuff (b. 1945) has translated several of Pia Tafdrup’s collections, all with Bloodaxe Books, UK. He is also known as a translator of nineteenth century Russian literature, including Dostoevsky’s The House of the Dead, Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, and The Idiot, all in Penguin Classics.