Kastanienallee 103

An einem Samstag im April. . . .

With patience full of joy
I watch the linear boundary between shadow and sun
creep across my table outside this Prenzlauer cafe.

But as clouds blur the border
stark to soft
my coffee cools.
like a bathtub draining water.
until I feel far
from everything
in a way neither good nor not.

For a moment that gray abates
to resurrect the line
and I reach across the table
as for the hand of my beloved
and it's gone.


I gaze over a shoulder to read headlines
through whose syntax I stumble
like a child.


The clouds deepen.


Across the half busy street,
whose pace itself seems to slow,
the fruit seller and his apples, bananas, oranges'
colors cool in the cloud-cover.


And now, now with the border a pencil behind my ear
the Sun makes his Odyssean Return
and somewhere half within me
a familiar flame flowers
that will stay aloft all night.