Second Floor Guest Lounge

Today I found a flowerpot had chipped
the chip nowhere to be seen

The sprouts spreading their rolled-up leaves
The whitely spreading breath

What if . . .
I mean what if . . .

I thought this about 50,000 times
I’m becoming a what if

Thinking too much
turns me into thought

I open the door
put my thoughts floating like dust on my palm
and blow it away like freeing a spider

Putting my hand into the dark
I offer a handshake

A scientist’s “I don’t know”
is because they lack an explanatory theory

The piled-up packets of pills on the table of a long-term patient

To begin untangling the mess of chords behind the machines

You don’t have to answer any questions
You can say something else that’s true instead

About how it seems
how it isn’t
and how it can only be so

Everyone shouts back they’re listening
The shouter keeps shouting the listeners start shouting
No one just listens anymore

translated by Anton Hur