[then I came home] Poem by Els Moors

then I came home
I threw my heavy bag
off of me in the corridor
you stood waiting for me

those were steps
I made beside you on the ground
one by one
someone bombed the station

a Rumanian shot
another Rumanian with a gun
last year a man lay in this street
blood stayed behind on the pavement

before you leave I gaze after a tram driving away

without us nothing could begin
without us it everything's been done

Translated by Willem Groenewegen