you look to the border through your eyes. dispersed
settlement, the decaying skin of the houses.
you in those rooms as a child. beyond that paths
lacing around the lines of sight. stomach
upsets from growing smaller. the woods
with the shots aimed at you.

your father tired from keeping silent. your mother
tired from keeping silent. not a word
that leads back. they will not come home
until death, that extends a moment
across time. the border begins
in the eyes before that. soldiers, papers, me,

on foot with the eyes of my father,
who is holding my hand more tightly, and the pearls
on my mother's eyelashes, which I keep in empty
cigar boxes and which mist up
each time I open them under the bed. in the woods
there are weapons buried someone told me

who has no name, since then the trees
have shot into the sky that vanished here.
i pay attention only to the path, to find
my way out before the evening rises up.
only when i am alone in my room do i sleep
with the light on, that disperses.

Translated by Catherine Hales