TE15 Lithuanian Honey Cake

Eight Poems By Gytis Norvilas Translated from Lithuanian by Rimas Uzgiris

foreknowledge autumn will come and smash the keyboard of your teeth chattering Mahler’s third with the falling fists of chestnuts and the open palms of leaves will flog your cheeks still speckled with atolls of fuzz and don’t ask why! there will be no answer for none is needed (or maybe it’s because the spring sown cherries won’t root) winter will come with cold it will close the fence of your maw where you are lacking in fangs and the thinning air wanders free so you see you weren’t ready the sleds not prepared in summer it’ll hand you an ice-axe to chop out an ice-box of the soul for holding the juice of eden’s apples and the preserves of cast-off sin (blood turned to vinegar long ago)

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