Couples

One always loves more than the other, they say.
The one who loves more
dissolves in boiling ambrosia,
turns into Shakespearean characters
(beggars, assassins, rulers, animals – et cetera).

The one who loves more is grandiose
and mean
and restless,
always the host, never the guest.

The one who loves more
is the happier.
Indeed, the happiest!

Perfect Strangers

I can’t say ‘Hello’. We never met.
I can’t say ‘Good-bye’. We never parted.
I can’t let you hug me. We’ve never been introduced.

The sky regains its ashen handcuff.
Yesterday’s blue was a hoax.
Artificial flowers wither.

I can’t remember our names.

Like ancient manuscripts, we are indecipherable.

Take My Word for It is Nina Cassian’s first collection of poems in English. Since being forced in 1985 to abandon her native Romania, where she had published more than 50 books, she has settled in New York. The American poet and critic Stanley Kunitz acclaims her as ‘a world-class poet, high-spirited, fierce, intelligent, uncompromising, and wonderfully nervy.’ These qualities are evident in her new poems, whose tone is playful and optimistic, sharp, witty, funny and wise.