AN EVENING CHAT Poem by Peter Semolič

Sometimes, if I am bored,
I talk to God. We examine
patterns in the linoleum together,
rhythmical repetitions
on the kitchen floor.

In these shapes, I say,
you can see a bear,
and in these a kitten,
and if you ignore the cap
on this funny chap
you get a lion's head.

Awkwardly he repeats after me:
a bear, a cat . . .
And is utterly amazed whenever he finds
the same shape next to the sideboard
or beneath the window.

Can you see this line
cutting the floor in half?
What disharmony it brings into the images.
This here could be a bison,
but it turns out merely a deformed
horse's back.

A bison, horse's back . . .
He spells like a child at his primer,
enraged over a black crack
that cuts the kitchen floor in half.

I point forward, towards the door into the hallway,
where the monster zone begins,
the zone of fantastical creatures without heads,
horrible freaks without bodies.
Slowly I push him out,
after all, it is late and I would like to sleep.

But when I get up at night
to have a glass of water
he is still standing at the door,
staring into a thin line
that runs from the wall to the window
like someone
who is lost in a foreign city
and does not know the language
to ask the way.