OH

I can hear it now as clear as day.
I was in the attic, trying to shave
something clear and concise
from a florid English translation
of a poem by José Hierro.
Nowhere near fluent in Spanish,
but having sense, I thought,
for the cadence of a line.

So I was taking great liberties,
doing what the poet Steven Heighton called
approximations, meant to excuse
inevitable monolingual errors in order
to establish an understanding between two poets
who might not otherwise speak.

You and I had recently moved into that attic,
painted the plum-coloured cloud pattern
in simple eggshell white.

Two rooms. Cheap rent.
A house of friends. I would get up early
to sit for a while at your desk
(the one by the window)
before you woke up,
borrow a bit of the morning light.

And my approximation was going so well,
I was feeling something akin to possession
I was skinning the scent from the clouds,
was putting cold teeth into our flesh.

I don’t think that I heard your steps,
or felt your hand, but I heard your Oh
as you read over my shoulder. Oh,
you said, and then my name,
thinking I’d written the words on the screen.

Of course, right then—no es mío—
I came clean.

But I’d raid and bend and recompose
to recreate that place,

that second room where I could live,
even if it was not mine.

Nick Thran is the author of the mixed-genre collection If It Gets Quiet Later On, I Will Make a Display and three previous collections of poems. Earworm won the 2012 Trillium Book Award for Poetry. Thran lives on unceded Wolastoqey territory (Fredericton, New Brunswick), where he works as an editor and bookseller.

Nick Thran (Kelly Baker)

“Oh” is excerpted from Existing Music, copyright 2025 © Nick Thran. Published by Nightwood Editions. Reproduced by arrangements with the publisher. All rights reserved.

Existing Music publishes on April 15.