TO MY NEIGHBORS (MY FLESH IS A FLAG LOWERED THIS MORNING) Poem by Marko Pogačar

Honey is melting in tea, completely, unlike me in you
and you in classical music,

never-ending phone calls, no room when you need
a clear table, elevators that are always broken

stairs unfolding into eternity, like talking about politics,
just as someone notices that totalitarianism and democracy

differ only in the system of numbers
the picture disappears and everything starts all over again: voices seep from walls,

completely bodiless, evening descends on palms, like a miner
into a hole, still, the shoes left

at the doorstep prove that the living exist, but what does it mean to live,
as winter comes rolling like cold breath from my throat,

and builds its nest in the dark alphabet; all those hurried unknown
people with known names, afternoons split in two, like Korea,

the tea in which honey had already melted, inseparable,
and this viscous solution is love; how to get to you; how to reach you?