It was almost
a cold case

found by anglers
half lifted half sunken
in the mudflats
along a river.

The morgue (fossilised reptile,
snow-white and smooth-scaled
of entrail) was cleaner
than a stone, washed ages
in a mountain stream

but
what I sniffed at first
pushed like a palm
against my pigeon-chest
and drove me
slowly back

until something
much stronger drew
me to that pulp
of flesh again.

Never
but in my pole-night blackest dream
did I see a more gravel-grey thing
so lukewarm and with a still more
yolklike
fluidity.

Look at it.

Look at me.

Translation: 2010, Gregory Ball