Author: Melanie Katz
Translator: Jen Calleja
Something Small
So you approach with
three barrels of preserved lemons
underneath your grey robe
maybe exposed concrete
maybe some kind of spun lace
from Paris, perhaps
And also
oh, yes
in your hand
a turquoise insect
I should, you say
and open your fist
should I, you ask
a small animal flies
away
the sum of goodbyes
this is how we plucked
the blossom petals
from one another’s eyes
they fell into my open hand
we stood there
and discussed the night
with our gazes
until it started to rain
we handed one another
small (smooth) pillows
made of foam
fed each other
I’ve carried
faint and gently mellowed
minutes
in my bag ever since
beneath the airstream
I can feel them
throbbing inside
In stages, at the lake
Beneath feathered trees
Sky crumbles into mosaic
Shadows pieces blue
Spiders throw
sticky silk in my face
Later the moon drips onto the paper
Twilight settles
on my eyelids three cubic metres of
fog
Les fleurs du [ʃa ɛ̃]
Thus Rilke transformed
into a rose-petalled rubber eraser
slipped in next to me under the covers
from there relentlessly whispered
stories in my ear
about knives and gaff-rigged schooners
about the grammar of chocolate
a paper garden
he wrote to me: listen, listen, listen!
The great epic
of an envelopment
Temperature change
Do you remember
there was a garden, the flowers, the house
Now the world turns around weeds and milk-glass
-hued flavour enhancers
there are stained clothes, three alarm clocks, the dog
Earlier it was you
today I realise
that it’s me
Long in the tooth landscape
Old toothless building beauty
You’re such a ruin, Martha
very tender
somewhere an abandoned fan is still turning
enviably
and there’s plenty of ship and sand
in Eberswalde again the evening
a wide bar
on the map of your passing years
We’re still waving to you
saying goodbye
Melanie Katz, Silent Syntax. hochroth verlag, 2018.