Alex Niemi is a writer and translator. Her poetry and translations from the French, Russian, and Spanish have appeared in The Offing, Anomaly, Prelude, and many other publications. Her translation from the French of The John Cage Experiences by Vincent Tholomé is forthcoming from Autumn Hill Books in 2020. She currently teaches Russian at the University of Iowa, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow and received her MFA in Literary Translation.
from ELEPHANT
a portion of ocean walking
a tree is a portion of ocean
knifing the sky
a small light hangs over the porch
speaks in tongues
for the body
wasting for return
the council threshing
for the ocean’s undoing
bales of photos planted
on the wall
quiet paths
demand exceeding
the height of the silos
a swell of ocean
lying on the roof at night
tying leaves back to trees