[you sleep] Poem by Gerhard Falkner

you sleep and lie next to your hair
your white leg is propped up
and i, on whom it rests, i am the world
made glum by your sleep, am the danger
that keeps your dream quietly in suspense.

you sleep and lie next to your hair
i embedded a whisper in your ear
it speaks to you, that i was the evening
the drunkenness, the quivering in the pessary
it speaks to you the speech that rescues me

Translated by Donna Stonecipher