Rachel Galvin is a literary translator and the author of the poetry collections Pulleys & Locomotion and Elevated Threat Level (Green Lantern Press, 2018), as well as a a work of criticism, News of War: Civilian Poetry 1936–1945. Her translation of Raymond Queneau’s Hitting the Streets received the 2014 Scott Moncrieff Prize for French Translation and was named a best poetry book of the year by the Boston Globe. In addition, she is cotranslator of Decals: Complete Early Poetry of Oliverio Girondo (Open Letter Press, 2018). Galvin is an assistant professor of English at the University of Chicago.

Photograph by Nicholas Barberio.

Letter Spoken in Wind

by Rachel Galvin

Today we walked the inlet Nybøl Nor
             remembering how to tread on frozen snow.

                            Ate cold sloeberries


that tasted of wind—a white pucker—
             spat their sour pits in snow. Along
                            the horizon, a line of windmills dissolved


into a white field. Your voice
             on the phone, a gezunt in dayn kepele
                            you blessed my head. Six months now
People on couch
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