Tenderness Poem by Sibila Petlevski

A cobweb has spread its perfection between
a green sprig and an old branch. The weak
and the strong combine forces in keeping
the thread. Enlightenment got itself entangled,
and now it looks like a sun beam filled with
floating dust particles in an ordinary summer
afternoon. But it's not. Chance makes its worlds
the same way the flame flutters its blue and white

frame around the head of fire. It seems light as
a cobweb. But it's not. The same would appear
different by night: as a tiny skeleton, an angel
that had lost its faith and died as bugs die. Things
are getting out of control: they establish love
relations unthinkingly, entangle themselves in
the translucent texture of associations. Tenderness is
similar to death: it connects anything to everything.

Translated by Miljenko Kovačićek and the author