VINCA (L. fem.) Poem by Fredrik Nyberg

People eat sand.
I ask you if I can change.
Your left hand is a peculiar zoning.



It is snowing abundantly.
I hate my life.
It is an early, very cold winter morning.
I might be nine, maybe ten years old and through the window I see
as my father tries to push the family's Volvo,
which apparently does not want to start in the cold. Suddenly he slips in the snow
and falls forward into the car's open left front door. I see
this, and even though it is only a little past six in the morning, I see
it as though it were entirely light out there. He swears and I
quickly go back to bed again. To close one's eyes and choose a less
painful color.

Translated from Swedish by Jennifer Hayashida