translated by Steven Polgar

I don’t know why I wait.

A train clatters past your house

a soldier stands at one of the windows and waves.

His hair blows in the wind

and flickers like the dying flame of a match.

Things happen the way they did

when time stopped and couldn’t go on.

Trees stare at the steaming land

read it like the morning paper

but don’t find a thing.

Only a cow chews its cud

and sees the end of the world:

no blood

no fire

no smiles

her tail sweeps from one haunch to the other

no flood

no biblical tales of rushing water, drowning men

flies fuck

bushes shrivel from the plague

dung heaps rise in the sun.

Something happened as if it didn’t happen!

Something that should fly

into my face

like words like starlings like howling waves

or the fires of war

burning the eyes of insects.

A pigeon tilts its bleached wings

and flies away.