Nayon and I sit one day.
We are translating a poem I wrote last year;
It is called The Fisherman’s Wife.
I talk about the smell of the sea
And the smell of semen.
About heroin and being underwater.
We decide to translate backwards.
I meet him a week later, and he has pages
About tall, beautiful feet.
“Where is the rest of her?” I ask.
“I am moving up gradually,” says he.
I miss our next few meetings.
Six months later, Nayon has two more lines
He asks me, “Does your fisherman’s wife shave between her legs?”
Now we are both stuck. We don’t write or talk for weeks.
“This is important.” “Yes, of course.”
Yesterday, I read Nayon’s new poem.
It is about the tall, bare trees of autumn
That have given birth to his coffee table.
Suddenly my heart reels towards the forest,
To crawl across damp leaves.
—
Originally published on https://medium.com/@ahsansajid/a-primer-on-editing-a7731d345462
—
Photo: Raisul Nayon
