At the beginning was fear

There were also poems,

Then a man came,

When everybody else disappeared,

The man came-

The fear disappeared,

A child came-

The fear returned too.

The fear of sudden death.

Then the wave of lullaby came- it suffocated me,

Then the smell of milk deafened me-

All the sounds disappeared- except mine,

And it rang from inside

As the swallowed tongue ( of the bell)-

The soft metal,

All the sounds disappeared-

Jealous, warm, coarse,

Yearned for, sweet,

Or,

Strict, simple

Anorexia- love,

Between bones and skin

It can’t get used to extra- the third

In other words the poems-

Grieving mourners

Me – the dead-(the poems cannot get used to me-Nata)

They said good-bye one by one

And when a child

Between morning milk

and afternoon porridge,

says inter-

jections

syllables,

then rhymes them-

and builds up the words

colourful plastic cubes-

I understand exactly- what you want to say

And what you mean-

You- my mother’s mother tongue

You my mother’s mother tongue

You – my mother.