Your lyricism is like a doll,
You take its dress off and put it on, you comb it,
You hold it in one hand and turn it upside down
To make it shut its eyes,
And with the fingers of the other hand you take hold of its curled eyelashes
And make it open one of its eyes,
Which looks coldly
And has no definite colour –
You make it open, make it close
And you close it and open it again.
You get bored with it and you put it down facing you
On the table,
So that, as before, it can look at you
With its eyes wide open,
But you have ripped off its limbs
And fixed arms where there should be legs,
And legs, where there should be arms.
Yes, your lyricism is one of these dolls
With an upset stomach,
So upset that,
When you turn it upside down,
It can’t make another sound,
Let alone cry.
It only raises a single eyelid,
As if it is winking, and
Knows some secret – perhaps of life?
But you open your medicine chest
In response,
And you test its heart with a phonendoscope,
And give it an injection
In the place where the thigh joins the shoulder –
You inject it and feel
It calming down,
And yourself calming down,
For you realise,
Your lyricism must be this sort of doll
With its hair ruffled and
Sticky with morello cherry jam,
Wearing a dress,
With one eye knocked out,
With an upset stomach and
Arms and legs mixed up.
This sort of doll must be your lyricism,
Until you give up
Love,
Injections,
Dolls…
Playing with dolls.