Apathy (the Weight of one’s Hand)

By: Lina Buividaviciute

Translated from Lithuanian to English by Irma Šlekyte.

I’ve never seen it raising a revolver, ready for

a slap of betrayal. I’ve never witnessed it tossing soil

on a three-year old’s coffin, caressing an unloved one, writing

the last letter, holding a hand of the one who’s departing. So, they say, I

have no right to gather so much heaviness in my elbows and

forearms. I have no right, they say, to not move my wrist bones.

I know I have to move these arms for the sake of the bedridden,

for those marked with age spots, for those who’ve lost everything,

for those whose limbs were torn off by shrapnel.

Hanging off the edge of the bed, on a frayed bedsheet, despite

all the scolding, persuading, ultimatums, I cannot stroke

my child’s head –

my hand grows heavy, because, I believe, as soon as I touch him, the soil

will start pouring onto him.

I fight using different shapes of blackness, with no blood flowing to the ten

little fingers,

but if I’m called, if we once again need to stand hand in hand, I promise You world

my hand,

for a short respite from an unworldly heaviness.

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Lina Buividaviciute is a poet, literary critic and scholar. This piece of poetry is kindly translated from Lithuanian to English by Irma Šlekyte.