Anna Stern

“the light in the train is too bright so you keep your eyes closed

the day is stil night, hanging thick and blue between the trees

some secret ingredient in the cream gets stuck between the hairs on your arms and makes them sparkle, almost like a magician has scattered fairy dust over you

you swim slowly, every stroke an effort that your arms and legs can just barely perform, and you're tired and weighed down with a special kind of happines

that robs you of the words that could otherwise describe what just. what just didn't

even now not a day passes when you don't; first thing in the morning, last thing at night

you try to free yourself from the thin summer sheets trapping you in place like a straitjacket, in which you can't

to be able to show it and say: that's how it was. that's how it is

how can it be if it can't be

you listen to the slow footsteps and know at once who it is

particles of dust dance through the darkness in the pale yellow sphere of light, following an unknown choreography

in another year, the two of you would have gone swimming together

in every other year

you blink, blink, blink”
― Anna Stern, das alles hier, jetzt