DANGEROUS ABSENCES Poem by Durs Grünbein

Everyone's full of murmurs. A drum filled
To the brim with secrets, weaknesses, always
On the move, off-beam, beside ourselves.
Dangerous, these absences. Forgetting
The body out in the rain. Leaving it behind
With the parcels at the post-office, the bus station.
Frequencies of longing, radio waves, erasing
The contours of the individual…
And never more
Than when we're head over heels, or jealous.
Then we play at being Tarzan, swinging across cities
On telegraph wires, all of a sudden masters of telepathy.

Then a face seems to hover in the air, ideas pop up in
Speech bubbles, carried from impossibly far. What
Are these deep looks, these voices, on the edge of sleep?