FALSE FRIENDS AND BELOVED

even a translator’s false friends

become just friends one day:

you say “kochana”—“my beloved”—

and a blast inside me forms a mushroom cloud

I ask, are you drunk?

do you know what this word means in Ukrainian?

because there is the word “kochanie”—“cutie”

you said to me yesterday

like you were talking to a little girl

you reply that I’m sweet

that I’m just sweet and not your beloved

you express not in Ukrainian but in Polish

that I’m your “kochana”—that is

a friend, to say it more precisely, a girlfriend

you know, I say, in Belarusian they also have problems with love

in Belarusian it’s not like ours at all

their “liubov” is calm and tasty, like love for food

like love for a country when it’s not at war

how on earth can they live without love

as we have it?

you say:

love is like a gust of wind

you’ll never guess what will happen to it tomorrow

for example, in French, “baiser”—

is not “to kiss” anymore

now it means “to make love”

what if you spoke French not Polish

and said the word “baiser” that you had been taught incorrectly at school

and I agreed

because at school I also had been taught incorrectly

what would happen?

for the body knows language better than the mind

the body will not let you down

my beloved!

this relationship is so uncertain

all this love changes so much from language

to language today kiss—tomorrow lovemaking

today romantic love—tomorrow—love for a country

beloved, je t’embrasse—

I kiss

I only kiss you

on your cheek

false

lover of a translator

that is of a bad translatress

Translated by Svetlana Lavochkina