Berlin encounter Poem by Yaak Karsunke

who ist stepping up to me from the twilight?
with half a voice in the half-night
asks the question (extremely inconvinient):
what his state had turned you into?

not so, distorted image, not with this trick
- the victim versus perpetrator net won't take me here -
don't keep on lying to yourself any longer!
but my murky shadow protests:

we here in the east, you in the free west,
we've now learned what's trend-setting:
we in the huts, you in the palaces -
but not as far-away as you think.

leave the mirror, brother, I am frightened,
when I discover my image in you.

Translated by Mark Falkenberg