In hospital Poem by Dirk van Bastelaere

Bared heart, let yourself be dragged, gasping for breath,
through the mire,
cold fled 'ing on the satin of a cushion
blue as the dripping wound
of Amfortas,

where the darkness yawns, deep
in a gullet, nil between lungs,
reamed with stinking russula,
a sphincter which no longer shuts.

All that I am

is dragged round with this

given respiration under the lights
of a hospital
called love,

yes, that's what we believe.

Translation by Francis R. Jones