VÄXJÖ Poem by Charlotte Van den Broeck

There's a lightness in the air that wrings.
We look like kids washed up in the corner
of the playroom, fists bawling on the mat,
screaming that their bodies are bursting at the seams.

At noon we stare into the sun with bulging chameleon eyes,
the world smudged in coarse grease pencil lines.
There's no noticeable difference between the hand and the table
just the transition of matter.

In the wavering image of magnified pixels
a girl's hair sways in long ponytails, hair
that isn't yet a trump card but a burden when she plays.
When she walks the tails swish like whips.

A lethargy weighs everything down:
more mass on top of the same surface area
causing things to tumble off somewhere
along the margins of the world.

There's a lightness here that wrings.
As if it's all just a marble alley
a way from up to down
until someone lifts us up again.