Miriam Van hee (Belgium)

poland or austria
 
it’s the same here as elsewhere, in poland
or austria, somebody says, and that
the gardens in England are prettier
 
and you see yourself back at your parents’
house again, in the evening under the
strip light on the veranda, listening
 
to the rustling of the wind outside, the evening
was full of thoughts, bodies
slept like hills in landscapes
 
and nobody said: I’ll show you the moon
but you saw it as it slowly
laboured upwards from the dust
 
of the city, solemn and large
finally you went inside,
you searched for other languages on the radio,
 
music, you wrote down what you heard
in notebooks, you used words
to mislay time 

Translated from the Dutch by Judith Wilkinson

source text: Miriam Van hee, Buitenland, De Bezige Bij, Amsterdam 2007
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