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Poetry

How Is One to Hang Up?

By Cathrine Grøndahl
Translated from Norwegian by Roger Greenwald

It should be well known that
the voices can be piercing,
but they also have inside curves
I can’t negotiate
They run rings around me,
I can’t take them
I grow smaller and rounder at the edges
with each day I listen
and listen
I’m the switchboard for sensitive words
What am I to say into seven lines
at the same time?
My head whirrs, thoughts a mess,
speech mangled in a maze of angles
Whether someone’s phishing by phone?
Whether someone’s messing up my mnemonics?
Have no idea
What’s the right dial tone to adopt
for the voices I can’t have
hanging in my ear?

English

It should be well known that
the voices can be piercing,
but they also have inside curves
I can’t negotiate
They run rings around me,
I can’t take them
I grow smaller and rounder at the edges
with each day I listen
and listen
I’m the switchboard for sensitive words
What am I to say into seven lines
at the same time?
My head whirrs, thoughts a mess,
speech mangled in a maze of angles
Whether someone’s phishing by phone?
Whether someone’s messing up my mnemonics?
Have no idea
What’s the right dial tone to adopt
for the voices I can’t have
hanging in my ear?

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