Poem of the Week: “The Call Has Been Answered” by Ileana Mălăncioiu

The Call Has Been Answered

The call has been answered, this sun
Has risen over the green field.
The soul unfolding as a snail
Slides out of his enclosing shield

He dawdles across the long empty
Space it seems he drowns
In light he flourishes over the white wave
Two melting jellied horns

He feels no gravity at all,
He has come all the way out as in a dream
He strolls he seems turning to go home
But the shell is closed to him

–Ileana Mălăncioiu, trans. from the Romanian by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, from Legend of the Walled-Up Wife (2012)