A dwarf bat flaps glumly
past the stable,
the little nettle by the cesspit
now makes its sugar with the air,
and on the wash line camomile hangs
with mint, with lime, becoming tea.
Those who, Israel-bound, fly over Greece,
ten thousand metres high and in the sun
see brown Euboia still separate from Attica.

Hereandnow,
hereandnow on the tarmac
two thin women's heels tap
as if in the calcium of shoulder blade bone.
Wherever does the female praying mantis
now suck dry the head
of her ejaculating mate,
or does a deep-sea snake
cast off its old entrails for new?

While the canton's breeding ram
two long meadows away
butts the door of a wrecked car,
and all the gnawers creep out of their holes,
furry, shiny, warm and globular,
hereandnow then
all traps have been set,
every woman's murdered her husband,
will before night falls
change my blood,
and I know today already
who I was not,
although well-known, by air
by water, fire and darkness known.

Translated by Paul Vincent