Ach du… Poem by Charles Ducal

Not to have to write it's enough
to touch her imaginary shape.
It burns into the screen as onto a drape
and laughs at me, always willing. I let it

think and talk me round, page filling,
for which no poet is needed.
This numbness has gone unheeded
for years, excitement without meaning.

Perhaps I miss the misery of a room
in which the holes are sealed: the door
a writ, the window an ultimatum,
at table an uncompleted affidavit -

and nobody who in shameless pleasure
fills my aversion to write.

Translated by Willem Groenewegen