Author: Daniela Seel
Translator: Catherine Hales
repeated test series experiments on yourself with raw milk products or
cosmetic scents the eczematous areas grow to the size of handballs
marram grass imitation wood bed showroom all
somehow well-lit from all sides you were talking about community
of acquired goods and the future green of a development boundary post-
materialism they call it in the clinical way of clinical customers or
modern performance a fierce burning this urging
to the heart of the matter defying imagination this first person plural
years ahead your little prophesies: paradises and havens constantly
renounced unfulfillable fitting in this wickerwork wishing
the way ankles may whisper: floppity floppity! rounding in rooms the sound
of the hounds under the blue arching down to the ground layer for layer
particles shifting to shadowy shops for the calming of bodies the back of a hand
in a long and all-too-clear movement from eye to chest as though that would say
it clearly enough washed out lawns or the fault in the weave on the doctor’s collar
below which the collarbones rising and falling your hand twitches
while you try to concentrate on the diagnosis then later
the question as to the difference between self-deception and patience
and again this swollen awakening so you can’t get your eyelids up
residues a running like the crumbling of the saplings out of your earth
heavy shoe-soles drying a knowledge of dermatology and long
distance phone calls aglow with exhaustion
Original © Daniela Seel
Translation © Catherine Hales