Werther's Aphasia 3

Out of the sea the night climbed onto my shoulders like an expired seal or swaying family tree.
But you were the flight of all seagulls.

The streets meander in their channels full of voices like a democracy that has lost its map.
But in you the quiet crop undulated like an inexhaustable sentence and orange grove.

The sky arched like weary copper or a loosely kept promise in July.
But you were the hedgehog's expression in a differently framed law of nature.

Morning happened on the horizon as if clumsy fiction were to be sold at the price of water or air.
But even your absence burned with a flame transmuted into an animal.

The day was a bunch of keys dropped into the whale's grave.

But the idea of your frame was an accident in the velvety brooding humidity.

The gables of houses fell silent like pocket watches pierced by rays beyond intention and time.
But you, still there, like the sound of a zipper after a thousand-year long opera festival.

translated by Anselm Hollo