SOLVE ET COAGULA Poem by Eva Gerlach

When you had that nose-bleed remember
the one that just wouldn't stop,
you sat head down over the basin
‘will I bleed empty now?' and I looked at you there,

it was as if I never more would
dare touch you again, as if you'd dis-
solve then and there into reality like
gold in aqua regia had I but stroked
you the slightest;

of course you hadn't got to die for
ages, I knew that full well, but he who sings to
the hares and the bears the songs where
he tells how he shot them had now just
started on yours, I could hear it
inside my head pling,
pling, the opening
tentative notes.