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.
...
seeing his face quite gravely still the dark eyes the morning
touched him as if to imprint his body on my fingers, hands don't be sad marie. you come and you go
...
a single man's black shoe slides past on the luggage belt. some boxes. grey. full or empty. fear. the exposure of poverty. the sense of catastrophe. collapse. an understanding that comes too late
...
gulls in dark water. the night. the mist over the salt lake. a strange almost cat-like sound
so entirely without promises. a present so entirely without promises. the power of the minus value. to tear away the veil. or did he cry too? the promise without a promise. what is it?
...
Marie Silkeberg (1961, Sweden) debuted in 1990 with Komma och gå and has since then published two additional poetry collections. She also works as a translator and an essayist. Her play Jeanne d’Arc - a tremendous hit, premiered at the Uppsala Town Theater in 1995.)
III[1]:1 news - there are still people in the hospitals
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