AT LEAST MAYBE IN SLEEP Poem by Dumitru Crudu

When I really want to talk to my mother I take the bus and get off in the little town on the border And walk around the bus station Through which I used to pass every time I came home. I'd have been able to meet her there Even now If my mother were still Alive Dozens of old women in the waiting room Talking among themselves With their hands on their knees I look from one old woman to another Even though I know my mother couldn't possibly be Among them Or that any of them could ever have met her, I'd have gone up to her And started talking to her. But she's not that one either. I open the door and go inside the house Now empty And I touch all the things That my mother touched Raising a cloud of dust around me A cloud of dust so big That nobody would be able to see me from outside If he looked through the window With that cloud of dust around me I go from one room to the next And go into my own room, where I climb into bed And wait impatiently to fall asleep. At least in my sleep maybe I'll meet My mother.