Cottonfieled Poem by Justyna Bargielska

It must have been the day of Corpus Christi. An older woman
dragged a shapely girl with Down's behind her: little girl, my little girl
when I die, what will become of you? But I couldn't,
older woman, promise you that we won't eat her, I don't exactly know
the habits of my kind, not exactly enough.
I often see us stopping on street corners,
we take out pictures from our wallets of buildings covered with golden domes
to show each other, men and women,
young and old, but whether from longing or as threats, I don't know.
It must have been that day, along the tracks
or at the edge of the park that a man in a brown jacket was walking,
he carried a football table, the tiny heads upside down
and there's nothing I can do about it, but the sun was tilting to the west.

Translation: Maria Jastrzębska