I Sometimes fancy

I sometimes fancy I'm an unforgettable line
In someone's autobiography but
The light always circumvents me
Like a run-over cat.

We circumvent each other as reluctant
acquaintances at the therapist’s door.
Making light gestures of I
Don’t exist and you never saw me. In fact, that’s all
what the gnat inside Titus’ head had said:
Pardon, I hate to interrupt your work,
But the exit sign is off, yes, that’s
Where the temple is, no, I have no matches,
It’s awfully dark in here, you never saw me, I
Don’t exist, how do I get out of here, the light circumvents
Me, burn something so we see something.
What’s the point of making history?
A run-over cat.

I sometimes fancy I'm an unforgettable line
In someone's autobiography
Like a rare disease.
With a magical tropical name.
And incurable.

Translated by Natalie Feinstein

Gad Kaynar-Kissinger (74) is a retired Associate Professor from the Theater Department at Tel Aviv University. His poetry was published in major Israeli literary periodicals and supplements, and compiled in seven books, including a bi-lingual Hebrew-Spanish publication Lo que queda (What Remains). For ADHD he won "The General Israeli Writers' Union" Award (2010). Kaynar is a stage, TV and film actor, and translator of 70 plays from English, German, Norwegian and Swedish. For his Ibsen translations he was designated in 2009 by the Norwegian King as “Knight First Class of the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit.

Natalie Fainstein has an MFA in Theatre Arts from Tel-Aviv University.. Since her graduation, she has taken part as an actress in a variety of theatre shows directed by Israel’s most prominent directors. She has expended her fields of expertise “in all things drama” by perusing additional careers in teaching, translating and writing. Natalie is also a voice-over artist with her own home recording studio, specializing in book narration. She is delighted and constantly challenged by Prof. Gad Kaynar’s poetry and considers it a great honor to be the English translator of his poems.