III[1]:1 news - there are still people in the hospitals Poem by Marie Silkeberg

he ties my shawl, my youngest son, winding it in many layers around himself and me. refuses to go to sleep unless i let him. starts crying every time i leave the room. i write. by the time he finally gets to sleep the news is over



saw the resolution of the hostage crisis in a film much later. the pictures of the dead terrorists. in black. gassed. the film showed a tv and the people watching it in kronstadt. grozny. ingushetia. i thought about the phrase i wanted to become real. about the children's feet. hands. sleeping bodies. faces. the mother in the empty flat in grozny. when the children had gone. the oldest five-year-old girl was crying beside her body. feeding her bread. the mother was too ill to eat. to look after the children. was refused a passport. left in the cold flat. bombed out houses. rows of empty black window-frames
Translated by Frank Perry