I took the table to work on.
The legs came off easily and the top isn't heavy
but now I'm sitting at the window on the wrong side
of this house, the city escapes me. A face
I don't remember the name of.

Maybe I oughtn't to listen to a requiem
in the morning but if I don't I hear girls
giggling. You never know when they'll start.
Can't the singer make a single mistake just for once? Like me

with a tall man in a low house on the water.
We went swimming. We were happy once in a while
but one day I became frightened of the table.

It made no difference if I left.
It would still be there anyway.

He shows the new wife the little sun
on the thermostat to be switched off at night.

Does she know she's sleeping between my sheets?
That the bed is mine and that I'm going to come
and collect the chairs and the wicked sea.

Translation: 2008, Donald Gardner