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Erik Lindner
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An armless woman is standing by the lake outside the spaceship disk of a teahouse you imagine how she lifted up her arms and tossed them flying into the sky the woman looks at you open-mouthed you stretch towards your two arms through the water you lost your wedding ring in the rose garden your wristwatch always runs an hour fast on the fallen clump of trees across the water you see birds’ nests and black beetles a duck swims slowly towards you turns its beak and you see its eye in which the lake is round and blue your legs float across the pond’s soft shallows over ooze and wisps of mud the water is cold your coat swells out and undulates along the ripples of your fall the duck quacks and veers away from you tree branches rock along the waterline day is breaking the light is rising when the woman stoops to the water drinks the lake dry with her open mouth you’re lying in a hollow your hands in the mud you lift your chest and slowly stretch you pull your hands from the sludge with a plop and place them just above her armpits where her arms used to be her hair is short her breasts are small the stone feels warm her neck unblemished and you feel her power to lift you up her will to pull you out of the earth and throw you high into the sky towards the clouds the sun the planets the milky way the dust of stars right through the vowels of your name erasing the roundabout ways you took before the summer you arrived on earth a wind blew up that didn’t last long and the blossom landed between the wheat. |
Erik Lindner (born The Hague, The Netherlands, 1968) debuted in 1996 with Tramontane. He published six volumes of poetry and two novels. His selected poems in German translation Nach Akedia (Matthes & Seitz Berlin Verlag, 2012) was a recommendation by the German academy for language and poetry. In 2021, his first book of poetry in English appeared: Words are the Worst (Vehicule Press / Signal Editions, Montreal) translated by Francis R. Jones. This book is nominated for the Derek Walcott Poetry Prize 2022. Erik Lindner lives and works as a freelance writer in Amsterdam. |
