Translated from the Austrian German by Karen Leeder

I

I love each and every finger on your hand.
I am sitting in the din behind the waterfall,
ultra-sounded palace, hazarded hearing.
What do you want to know? I've followed
my paddle up the creek a way. That's all.
Asphalt poetry in a Belarussian village.
Perhaps the one pose that's true.


II

On the way down the steep slope there were
cars already overtaking us all of them new this year
shining and not only with rain
                               clear outlines
finger on the tap a word and
                                   they would tip
us into the ditch or even simply
off course and out of the grooves that ran
...