WHAT WE DON'T TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT LOVE Poem by Damir Šodan

All said and done
his treatise on redemption
ended up in a black plastic garbage bag
amid the scattered pieces of furniture
where a little girl sits leafing
through a picture-book about algae.
Soon the door will unhinge itself from the house
(at least it looks that way)
and walk away across the meadow
trailing along behind the invisible quivers.
But once you've entered
that measure for mud
that muddled promise of spring . . .
(his tongue almost mumbled
out something like that)
anyway, try not to go on dying for so long
like Violetta in La Traviata
on the pages of the New Year
edition of a TV-guide.
This is not the time for salvos and prophecies.
He feels a sudden urge to embark on a plastic gondola
or get down to sharpening pencils.
Yes, pencils, why not?