​Alfred Schaffer (The Netherlands) 

‘visit’ – day(dream) # 3,623

​Sweat pours down my back I’ve suddenly lost my script.
I stand here messing around with a map
it seems like an eternity.
Bare trees, tidy streets, shutters closed
but all the houses are inhabited.
At least that’s what I’ve heard.
I leave the engine running just in case.
My car is made of stainless steel but where I go I go in peace.
No stopover this day with potholes in the road
and mist, traffic jams, arid brush, nothing but sand
and all of it without stars without light.
As though I were wandering through my own brain
as though I had drowned in a sea of mercury –
perhaps I’m not reading the map right.
It’s freezing cold here.
Reeling with lightness I tread on a dog, I think
something hairy, it lies there motionless.
If only someone would speak to me, someone who could
understand me.
I mean, it’s already evening
I think I should have gone left there
at that playground
only it’s a dead end street.
 
Translated from Dutch by Michele Hutchinson