On pain You talk of time and how its crooked ways will make us old as time. of daily devotions. of the g of goodness in good friday. of statues and folks resembling statues. of hail marys and hymnals. of church—it was all we had back then. of lashes, lines, and lanterns. of figolli, too, perhaps. of everything is sacred on good friday. of everything’s a little sacred/sacrilegious. Even the cry you uttered on that day was sacred. One into the floor another to the skies. The neighbors were all ears, you could tell but wouldn’t give them satisfaction. And so you writhed in bed clutching your chest the way you clutched your belly when you laughed. The way you held me when the world seemed way too big. Holding pain in your palm and refusing to call the ambulance, Joe, I said no calls or they will talk. They’ll say we called an ambulance, see, there’s something wrong, there’s no one home, there’s sickness in the family. No way, forget it ħi, no calls. So when you reach the hospital, in a taxi, you keep your head bowed incognito. Until we get there. We’re here, gran, right here. And then worry takes over, as it does. Worry is what you do. I mean, what else is there to do in bed after a heart attack but worry that it’s just one sock you’re wearing and even if the doctor isn’t looking the lord can tell it’s just the one and that’s not right. So I pull up the single sock and show it to you and pull it down, switch hands and pull it up again to make you see that it’s a pair and you believe me. Maybe in that moment you let go a bit and realized I’d become more of a woman and could take the weight of mismatched socks and ambulances and death. And so you, woman, took your leave, giving birth to pain and tears. Like you, gran, I have never cried. Remember how I’d ask you why you never cried— I’ve found out since that tears and pain are not the same. And that the sharpest pains do not draw tears. On killing I after Sylvia Plath Daddy’s gone he killed himself before I had a chance to be through to find him dead in his absolutes always never two hundred percent no doubt. I found him dead in the heat of the oven that never turns on in the chill coming out of his mouth in the ceiling fan installed but never used in the meat he chewed up and spat out in the tea he guzzled in the wine he spilled on the floor. Deafened by the yells I’d have yelled blinded by the syllables stuck in my throat he spoke out of turn he hemmed and hawed when he should’ve heard his voice reached the sky and bounced back. He’s killed himself my Daddy with all the worry, and he also killed the daughter he managed to have and managed, also, to lose. On killing II When I became a woman, Daddy told me the story of Tiresias. He said he’d turned into a woman, Tiresias Said I could be like him That I was like him now I was a woman That I was different now I was a woman He never mentioned he’d gone back to man, Tiresias That he was only a woman seven years That he was blind, Tiresias No seven-year span will make me forget I’m a woman And no prophet will make me believe I can’t see How’s this for a new vision A priestess’s—not a children’s word, that A prophet’s—and a woman prophet, at that
Author & Translator Bio
Author Bio
Leanne Ellul lectures in Maltese and writes both poetry and prose. She has written for theater and currently writes both textbooks and books for children, namely the award-winning books Noè u l-Iskojjatlu bla Kwiet (Merlin Publishers, 2019) and L-Istorja ta’ Seb it-Tieni (u ta’ Seb l-Ewwel ukoll) (Merlin Publishers, 2019). Ellul has also translated a number of works to Maltese. In 2016, she was named the emerging author of the year by the National Book Council of Malta. Her first collection of poems is entitled L-Inventarju tal-Kamra l-Kaħla [The Blue Room Inventory] (Merlin Publishers, 2020). Ellul is part of a number of entities that have the Maltese language and culture at heart, namely Inizjamed and Fondazzjoni HELA.www.leanneellul.net
Translator Bio
Albert Gatt trained as a linguist and computer scientist. His research focuses on the use of language in artificial (AI) and human systems and on the relationship between perceptual and symbolic data. He has translated poetry and prose by several Maltese authors, including Clare Azzopardi, Karl Schembri, Claudia Gauci, and Achille Mizzi. Recent translations include Last-Ditch Ecstasy by Adrian Grima (Malta: Midsea Books, 2017 and Mumbai: Paperwall Publishing) and In the Name of the Father by Immanuel Mifsud (UK: Parthian, 2020). Excerpts from his translation of the modernist classic Nanna’s Children in America by Juann Mamo (1934) have appeared in the journal CounterText. He currently works at Utrecht University in the Netherlands and is also affiliated with the University of Malta.