Undine is leaving since Hans no longer admires her new clothes Poem by Silke Scheuermann

Your gaze away from body to horizon
distances yourself from me and the things
the blood corpuscles the gestures
and finally the shining trio eye tooth lip

leads beyond daylight into other rooms
far away to the grave-diggers the graveside orators
the putschists and fighters in Grozny
to the rainbow red yellow red

since every cloud spits only pus and blood
my mother told me early on
never sleep with a photographer
they have seen too much already

You are near hills of tulips or wherever
This is the city the pedestrian precinct
here we are here your inner
fire strolls about in the knowledge

that two people who love one another
can add to or subtract from each other
can put a plus or as in this case
through no fault of our own a minus

Translated by Hans-Christian Oeser & Gabriel Rosenstock