RETIRED SEAS Poem by Dorta Jagić

amongst the people from Zagreb are numerous witnesses
claiming that retired seas
were just like retired people.
they dry up and shrink, and then find the best position
to help the swelling of life - near people.
nobody knows who filled up our bedrooms
with those invisible seas.
(the bottom of that sea is the floor
and the ceiling is the surface.)
because of their rapid shrinking, they are as thick as honey
so the ears of sleepers are no longer drilled
with the crackling of old-fashioned parcels containing ghosts' eyes.
nor do parents fear that children will hear them.
even the expensive pictures twist no more
under car headlights;
now they are just inadequately positioned searchlights.
but the greatest blessing to sleepers was that
they could go barefoot to the toilet
across the scorching dregs of burnt light bubbles.
the only trouble is when somebody suffers from insomnia
the sea gets so cold that all the rest have to plug into
the life machines.
as early as the middle of the next week it falls in love with all sleepers
and the question arises how will it be when the family moves on?
nothing bad. that could not confuse it.
just like all furniture, it places itself anywhere
in the removal truck,
just to be as far as possible from the aquarium
because it can't bear all that water and the fish.