Verschlimmbessern (Untranslatable)

FOLKSONG (TRANSLATION)
Judy Halebsky

In Portuguese they have a specific verb
for throwing something out the window

that was after, right now I'm making your shadow
tracing your movements
catching the sharp edges
the consonants, cross outs, catch phrases, latchkey, house key
wearing its shape into the change purse of my wallet
I'm keeping it in there in case I need to go back
unlock those four summers, the piles of stones, pass my fingers
over the Braille of incomplete sentences

the fields near your house in Connemara
are this lush misty green with mazes of stone walls
four feet high like n outline of city windows
not walls to make rooms or to mark off space
just walls as a place to pile the stones

in Japanese there is one character
that means searching for something
and a different character
that means searching fro something that you lost

I try to imagine farming in those little boxes
with no openings for a plow
no doorways, no spaces for coming or going
he's writing us in 500 word news clips
he's typing us in squares across the field

incredible is the same word in French and English
when you say it in San Francisco it means unbelievably wonderful
when you say it in Quebec City it means unbelievably wicked

letters for me still come to your house
they won't bring me back or let you go
they write out the words: ice floe, glacier, granite
drainpipe, folksong, doorway

from Judy Habelsky's Sky = Empty
encountered with Patricia Smith

VERSCHLIMMBESSEEN (UNTRANSLATABLE)
Adam Stone

The Arabic word
Ya'aburnee is the desire to die
before the person you love
because you can not imagine life
without them
The literal translation would be
"may you bury me"

"I've been emotionally complex ever since
my first boyfriend killed himself
rather than come out to his family so now I only date people
I imagine will outlive me" is a terrible opening
line for a first date but since I've already agreed to pay for this
overpriced therapy session that we both
assume will end in direct
violation of  The Hippocratic Oath you should know
I will never love you as much as imagine I would still love him
if his flaws were less fatal

Tsundoku is a Japanese word
describing the act of purchasing a book then adding it
unread to a pile of other books you haven't got around to reading

I do not collect men I collect
experiences with men If I bring you home I
expect to love you if I find time to get to know you I will not
make that time

​Fernweh is a German word for
feeling homesick for a place you've never been to

All these words with no direct
translation are so romantic Komorebi is
Japanese for the way sunlight
filters through trees I don't speak
romance well I speak
English This meandering 
pathway to overexplaining 
emotions