by Iva Ticic
The two tongues in my mind merge into one fleshy muscle
of my mouth, so of course I’d find myself on the Q train
at 7 AM, remixing the book on my lap, titled “Detalji”
with “The Tortured Poets Department” booming in my ears,
simultaneously.
To complicate matters further – this book itself, was translated
by no less than a dear friend. From Swedish to Croatian and then
physically carried around by me, onto various Manhattan bound trains,
like a port into the tower of Babel.
As Croatian phrases lodge in my brain, they try their hardest
to mindfully sidestep Taylor who is decidedly not Patti Smith,
while the you in the song is likewise decidedly putting spikes
down on the road, competing with Detalji, which unravels with a
lirska enciklopedija ljudskog života. But this encyclopedia of human life
doesn’t make us any less of
the very modern idiots implied
and as hauntingly lyrical as it all does get,
the question remains of,
who’s gonna hold you
who’s gonna know you
like me?
No-fucking-body.
I snap the book shut like a mouse trap as a rat scuttles over the platform;
I get off the train on the Upper East Side, while Taylor winds down her poetry.
I hope my elementary school Croatian teacher will forgive me
this blasphemy, not to mention my Croatian friend,
who translated diligently so I could merge it
with the poppiest of pops
in my bubblegum brain.
A writer is essentially a spy, once said Anne Sexton. I’ve borrowed, not to say stolen,
so much in this poem; what’s one more? A spy is a thief in disguise, I’m done now
with both. Croatian cowers back into the corners of my consciousness as I get ready
for a day of teaching English to American high-schoolers. I love them but sometimes feel
I’m putting nothing less than my very identity
on hold
for this particular gig. I might be straight from the tortured poets department
after all. The music, somehow, always wins. Exactly why, I’m deathly jealous
of songwriters. Sure, I can turn a profound phrase so it echoes like melancholy,
but add a cliché on a minor chord, and it just rings more… true?
Who uses typewriters anyway? Who writes anymore? Why bother?
Unless I am still attempting to make my life into a pop song, and oh, how sweet
it does sound as a soundtrack to my own life. In this, I am far less alone.
Most everyone I encounter on the commute has earphones imbedded;
all of us sentimental automatons, listening for a code into comfort.
Who else decodes you? And who’s gonna know you if not me?
Alright Taylor, we get it. That’s why you’re the genius.
I trick myself into relevance, I trickle down with poetry; I’m not sure anymore
of what language I speak or who speaks in it
to me.
So go ahead and serenade me.
I chose this cyclone with you. And who’s gonna hold you?
Who’s gonna know you?
Like me.
Iva Ticic is an international artist and teacher originally from Croatia. She has lived in the US (where she got her MFA in Creative Writing at Sarah Lawrence College), China, and Spain. She is currently back in New York City where she teaches high school English. She writes mainly poetry, with the occasional foray into short stories and non-fiction. She has published one chapbook titled Alice in Greenpoint (Finishing Line Press, 2015) and a full-length collection titled The Skywriter (New Meridian Arts, 2022).
