Sigrid Kingma was the RIXT Poet of the Month in October. You can find the translation of her poem ‘Windfall’ below. Her original Frisian poems are linked here.
Windfall
I paint you in high gloss strokes
like a karate kid
wax on
wax off
You shouldn’t clean ‘em
or the hairs will shed
our dad says, put ‘em in
a bucket of water, paint and all
Place my creaking knee higher
up the stepladder
you crawl underneath my coat
my legs tremble
wobble wobble
I grab the drainpipe
with my free hand
I paint your fruits
not too thin
I say fruitlessly to the brush
little flies land in the thick
green goop a tableau mort
Thick globs dribble down
gusts draw paths of resistance
I’m no painter
Rotting grapes strewn across the back garden
scattered by wild limbs
I’m no viniculturist
but no matter
let’s leave the harvest for next year
when the moon wants to dance
and the brush is submerged again
in its bucket of cloudy water.
© Sigrid Kingma
translation: Trevor Scarse