Back from Acedia Poem by Erik Lindner

1. She knows how to wear a coat as a dress
while sitting she perches
on the toes of her shoes

he stands he walks a few steps
he walks back and stands still again

she can see clearly how the objects are straight
if she imagines the floor as slanting

reading in the bus as it sets off
she reaches out a hand
which a woman grasps to sit down

she ties her laces on the escalator
a car stops and she steps inside.


2. When she puts her knee against the seat
she lifts up the chair by its back
the chair dangles balancing on one leg
then twists to a stop

in the stairwell stands a ladder

she says my thoughts are a landscape
her fingers drum on her thigh

a woman is squatting on a tree-stump
her elbows propped on her knees
she has no ankles on her feet

she stands up and opens the shutters
a man is dancing on crutches in the street.


3. After she starts the engine
drives a front wheel off the pavement
she rubs mascara across her eyelid

over the road a boy is spraying
a garden hose onto a moped
water runs in ripples across the street

a girl trying to skip
lands with feet outspread

A woman in a parking space
waves to the passing cars

she puts a map on the dashboard
she turns the mirror back and presses the gas pedal.


4. On Sunday she buys her little dog a croissant
and she walks down the corniche in a new dress
the shadow of the balustrade fills the pavement
The handrail curves with the sea's horizon as she bends down

a pair of sunglasses lies unfolded on a towel
a man with outstretched arms is throwing a child into the sea

the man who was speaking sign language
in the wide part of the gangway
suddenly gave a loud clap of his hands
and even then she didn't stop reading

she swims and spreads her arms at every wave
up by the roadside a hitchhiker is sitting on a suitcase
stones glow as she stands up out of the water.

Translation: Francis Jones