How we spoke Poem by Erik Menkveld

I.M. Gerard Rasch

How spontaneously we still spoke
in our well blooded quick to laugh
and clumsy bodies Gerard when
we drove round the great due to smoking
wheelchair dependent smoker Zbigniew
Herbert also the great poet here in your
words going through the maritime museum -
how spontaneously we still spoke when
beside this wheezy frail and nearly
dead roguish bully and then just before
closing time he had to get himself some
books on shipbuilding in the United Provinces
of the Netherlands and laughing we
pushed him forcefully through the museum's
gift shop about to close but he had all the time
in the world and so did we and he was
loading as though his life depended on it
everything he'd always wanted into
his lap and we convincingly excused him:
this Mister needs to return to Poland in
the morning and we lent him the money as what he
fished from his pockets under the impatient
gaze of the check-out girl was hardly
wink yes what were we thinking -
oh Gerard how did I speak you speak
spontaneously still each in our own
back stabbing body that wasn't about
to silence us I thought
I think you thought.

Translation: 2005, Willem Groenewegen