BROWSE Columns
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A paper
cup: coffee
stains, your DNA, words
scribbled: fuck them,
traffic, you fall
asleep, the rest
unreadable. Did your lips touch
fuck them, traffic, you (me)
falling asleep? I can’t
remember, have I ever
been? Did I
choke in a milk foam?
Ab-
ςence: I
decomposed and then
I was recycled. Don’t you re-
cognize me? A draft
left on a cup, some stains,
DNAs – mixed, words
scribbled: them
falling, traffic
asleep, fuck
you (who? me?), the rest
unreadable.
If this place is the only refuge
to say, to speak, a compartment
safe for conversations, will I ever pro-
nounce it? Want to see the tongue touching
the teeth to produce a sound? touching them
with/out sound? Who is to catch the arti-
culation fracture? Crepatura, strange
word: “crack” in Italian; muscle soreness
in my (of my?) tongue. If my mouth
is the only refuge for someone’s loose
language muscle, if your mouth is the only
if, if I, should I, will I ever, who is response-
able, who is to tell me to shut
up, to hold my tongue – – you
smile: hold my tongue, T., – and I
tiಉ
Tatiana Krasilnikova is a bilingual poet writing in Russian and English, a literary scholar and a PhD student at Columbia University working on feminist experimental poetry. Her Russian-language poems have appeared in DOXA Magazine, F–writing, ROAR, “Olimp Circus” + TV, Flagi, and other media, and have been translated into English and Italian. She is a co-author of the book Boris Pasternak’s Poetic Language. “My Sister – Life” through the Prism of Idioms (2021; written with Pavel Uspenskij) and an author of several articles on Russian 20th century poetry and prose.
