Barbara Pogačnik (Slovenia)

Dwelling Place
 
My room is open to all four walls
like a glass tower, with a mild vertigo,
when you are whirled up high. Cats
with white fur are thronging the threshold,
trying clumsily to push through to the silver bowl.
On the other threshold there is a ring finger of someone's hand,
longer than the middle finger, in alliance with mine:     
but still trapped in the armour of his silver car,
someone's dance feet are trying to count
the slow steps on the cobbled stones.
Nobody has brought him, he has some doubts about
his sense of orientation and is giving way to
the strong bodies of sea snakes.
A lost index in some book blazes forth in the strong sun.  
How is he to measure the distance between the crowds
and me, when he cannot understand neither them nor the silverware.
It is comforting for me to know that my room  
is on an airy floor.
But the elevators are so rapid
that the solitude of my room can be seen through the glass.
 
 
Translated by Ana Jelnikar

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