Yuri Andrukhovych | "(Rib)"

I'd donate my rib

to the anatomy room.

The enormous hearts of butchers and paramours are there,

the flabby and puffed up lungs of smokers,

trumpeners and glass-blowers,

a forlorn drunkard's guts,

the tatooed badge of a hero (right above the nipple)

and the hands of the last executioner

after a twelth conviction...

Not a word mentioned about other products.

I'd donate my rib.

Perhaps something would come out of it -

a certain fish,

or a woman,

or a branch

of a forgotten tree

a ginkgo.

Translated from Ukrainian by Ostap Kin

*

The poem (Rib) is part of Yuri Andrukhovych's cycle "The Notes of Traveler in July", which is included into his collection of poems Exotic Birds and Plants (Ivano-Frankivsk, 1997).

*

I have translated all seven poems which form this cycle. Does anyone know a literary magazine which would be interested in translated Ukrainian poetry and where it is possible to publish all seven poems?

*

Yuri Andrukhovych is a poet, writer, essayist and translator. His latest book in English is The Moscoviad (Spuyten Duyvil Press, 2008), translated from Ukrainian by Vitaly Chernetsky.