epigraph · translated · from a closed country
the door stays in our language
even when we have crossed it.
the country we have left is open in us
the way a hand stays open in a glove.
[lit.: "even crossed, the door / dwells in our mouth; / the closed country / opens within."]
— translated, from a closed country
the original language is not currently spoken in any country still under its old name. the translation has been smoothed considerably; the literal is included for those who prefer errata in plain sight. there is no agreed original text — five versions circulate, each shorter than the last.
it has been mis-attributed to a poet in exile who, when asked, politely declined the credit. the actual author is, by tradition, either a customs officer or a child; sources disagree. the library records both attributions in different cards.
now used at the head of pages on thresholds, on memory of a place, and on any glove that keeps a shape no hand currently occupies.