Allison deFreese

Fictionalization by Sophie Rubenstein

signs by Allison deFreese

To Sarika after Bashō and Bly 

You ignite air
when signing,
when palmar bumps palm,
when the thumb 
skips pebbles over the index
in the dry silence
where words round 
or fold then splay. 

Your hands are origami.
Paper boats and cranes float 
off the fingers,
take flight over water. 
The temple bells have stopped 
ringing
but the sound keeps coming
out of the flowers.

translation by sophie rubenstein

 Origami Men

She spoke with her hands, folding cranes for the duck club men to shoot down when they ran out of ducks. When shot, the paper cranes trilled their displeasure. The way they drifted to the ground was pathetic, and the men feared turning into boys. When the men voiced their dissatisfaction, she folded other animals for them to kill. She folded geese, but the result was the same. Next, she tried deer, moose, wild boar, bighorn sheep, bear. Her animals bleated, bellowed, squealed, and moaned. The duck club men bleated, bellowed, squealed and moaned. She put her heart into her hands, and her hands into the animals. The air ignited with the animals’ pain and the men’s pain, until it was unclear whose pain was whose. Determined that the men should remain men, she poured more of her heart into her creatures, draining her life so the men could feel. She folded lion, giraffe, rhinoceros, and cape buffalo. When even these animals failed, she offered herself. The men shot her down. Finally, they felt something. As she died, the men asked her for one more work of paper. It was a notice. Duck Club Seeks Origami Folder. Serious Inquires Only.

Allison A. deFreese is president of the Oregon Society of Translators and Interpreters (OSTI). She grew up on a pig farm and has published a few books.