translated from the Polish Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese
fire: cleansing
into the lid of a big jar father pours
methylated spirits lets me set it on fire
over the flame he singes the cold body of a duck
heart or liver? he asks though he knows that mother
will save the liver for me apparently thanks
to it after the time of illness i recovered blood
november: evil i
for your long illnesses I used
earthly and unearthly measures and old rogowska
the more she resembled a desert bird
the more thoroughly she groomed evil off you
that november night i thought
she put it aside in her back in that meaty hump
november: evil ii
we could sense old rogowska was coming
father fetched from the hall a vodka bottle
filled with honeydew she knocked her stick
against the kitchen window
on the threshold of that winter her hands became
claws of a bird of prey (we knew it) she celebrated
hushed masses over our heads she smelled
like wet molehills burst
with acetylene carbide
november: evil iii
especially during your long illnesses
i’d sidle closer the warmth of the infection stored
in your throats you were as defenceless as the young
of pigeons I used for your broth
and when you stole cats from the cowshed
i closed my eyes
with these exceptions I was a strict father
and unjust you’d say
Małgorzata Lebda, ultramarathon runner and photographer, has published six poetry volumes, which won major Polish literary prizes. She grew up in Żelaźnikowa Wielka, a small village in the Beskid Sądecki in southern Poland.
The photo taken by Natalia Orłowska.
Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese writes with/in English, Polish and Danish. Her visual poetry publications include preter/natural appetite for chalk (intergraphia, 2025) and convers(at)ion: sea fog chalk (Essence Press, 2024). Among her Polish poetry translations are: Song at Half Past Three (Wojciech Bonowicz; Literary Waves, 2026), Night Truck Driver (Marcin Świetlicki; Zephyr Press, 2020; longlisted for the 2021 PEN America Poetry in Translation Award longlist, finalist for the 2020 Big Other Book Award for Translation.); Salt Monody (Marzanna Kielar; Zephyr Press, 2006). She co-curates and runs ‘Transreading’ courses on translocal and hybrid poetries for the Poetry School in London. Her site-specific verbal and visual texts, often zines and artists’ books, use botanical inkmaking, cyanotype, pinhole photography and expressive handwriting. IG: @elzbietawojcikleese
