She hadn't seen her mother. She knew a lot about her, her grandmother had told her about her childhood, about why she had left her side. She was like a leprechaun in a fairy tale, you wanted to but were afraid to meet her. When he found the picture of her, she looked at her a lot and kissed her. Freckles. That's what she called her, seeing the freckles spread across her nose. One day she finally met her. At the hospital. She'd lost everything and anything, but she reached out and felt her freckles. That brought a twinkle in her eyes. Otherwise, no smile.
Oana Jindiceanu
You can smell that odour again. It smells of 20 years, of poems written on a napkin, of dreams not yet fulfilled because they haven't ripened enough, and of Motorcycles. It's only April, but it smells like summer, my face is flushed like it does at the seaside. And the eyes. They're turquoise. I want to walk around the city till I'm tired, and you to pick me up and carry me like a young bride under the blooming trees. It smells like summer and I want to dance and look at the stars and listen to the night like nothing else exists.
Sorin Rizeanu
Your freckle on my fingertip. I wipe it gently with my hand with the thought of undressing you further. Dice dots on your sea-foam skin, scaled bride, gambling for a lost sailor. Good thing I heard you sing, my ship was pulled by currents crazily and you gave me direction. And now that you've eaten me I lie in your belly, Don Juan glad to be inside a woman again, even if you have a fish tail. And before I fade into darkness I'll count your freckles again. Those on your liver.
(Translated by Corina-Alexandra Belu / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / Corrected by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)
Versiunea în română a acestui text se poate citi aici, în rubrica Ficțiuni Reale.