Embedded Files
November Rooms
Poems by Anna Tapola
Translated from Finnish by Kasper Salonen
I
I wake up in a city, into its November rooms dyed birds fly straight out of the hunter’s mouth, they sit on my palm, spread their pink wings on the plate like a badly chafed sunrise. Chestnuts are wrapped in these mornings, sold in stalls steaming with fatigue, sold and eaten with cold-numb fingers, a bird's heart dug out of its shell, still warm. A song that no one claims as their own. When I step out onto the street, there is only one of me here.
II
The idea of bridges disappears in fog. I count the rivets on the railing, years in both directions. I touch each dark sweet spot, each bruise. The past and the present walk different paths: how easy it is to cross a bridge, to return. To peel a chestnut, shiver in a November wind, be eaten. The bridge vanishes, maybe in the dusk, time that sprints ahead is an ordinary mortal. A human, an act that can't be named, fruit pulp, blood.
III
This city is a wave, another, a third. Trams swing from one crest to another, carrying thoughts, travelling in their own directions side by side, self-filling speech bubbles, an alien monologue. We switch places: thoughts mate, horny insects. A swarm darkens the sky, attacks stealthily like a stalking rain, a filling hollow. I close the drapes that you left open, on purpose.
IV
One way or another, only one chair remains, a messy bed, sweaty sheets. A lover visits my room, touches objects like lies that I believe, unknown life in the cells, in other species, in the universe. A powder mirror reflects rays on the wall, scales, a school of sardines swims among the vines, vanishes into a black hole. Fish swim toward time as well: dream-visions, magic charms without free will. I ask for the day but they bring me the night, a docile beast that I caress.
Anna Tapola is a poet and researcher based in Helsinki, Finland. Her debut poetry collection, Puut liikkuvat öisin (Trees Move at Night), was published by Aviador in 2025. Her work explores embodiment, estrangement, and transformation through dreamlike imagery and unexpected associations. She is currently working on her second poetry collection.
Kasper Salonen is a bilingual poet, translator, artist, and educator from Finland. He has performed at hundreds of open mics and literary festivals across Finland and Europe, organized cultural events, and published original poetry and translations in both English and Finnish since 2010.
Copyright © 2026 by Anna Tapola and Kasper Salonen, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of Copyright law. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the notification of the journal and consent of the author.
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