I can put everything in different places.
Put down the table where the light doesn't reach it.

I've set out water and soda
will serve you spirits in bed in case you
wish to recover in this bed.

I noticed your hands. They seemed sick, absently
roamed about town, suffered everywhere.

The newspaper claims a successful recovery.
All measures, spokesmen say, give short thrift
to the loneliness, the aimlessness of the seasons.

I count the cigarettes that you brought, smoke only
the odd ones.

I await the first snowfall, lay out the last fruit to dry
open the door to men with loud voices.

Soldiers come in warning of the snow
of a fire further down the street.
A conversation with them permits a smoke.

Wild the flies have become
if it isn't just me, you wrote
and I saw even better lines on the news.

It is customary to wait a few minutes and then
to force the door.

Did I write back how nervous I was?
I had just bandaged your hand.
Your shape became more and more visible.

You sat by the window, describing the talks that filled the evening.
No quieter than a waiting room
yet more dead the world was then
and all the confessions were housed in closed minds.

The way that you smoked
betrayed your pose while waiting
betrayed my awkward choice of words.

In the first snow I saw you burn your hands.
I thought of the line ‘spring is coming'
and looked over my shoulder
saw then what stayed behind.

Translation: 2008, Willem Groenewegen