tires
By Jan Wagner
Translated by David Keplinger
where the city starts to come undone,
at the railroad embankment, beyond the staunch
colossal cicada of the substation
in its splendor, you start to notice:
used up, towering, a field of them, worn
or rippled texture in each paunch
and smokier than all the rembrandts
put together: rubber-acropolis,
sanctuary of the banal—attacked by torrents
in autumn, suffering belts of rain and ice,
now whirrs insect-silence, july-transparence.
the dandelion with its angora pullovers,
the yarrow at the fence, and on the lawns
ticks, fully focused on their borreli-
osis; high on their thrones, forgotten ones,
the deities dunlop, goodyear, pirelli
far from the glorious skid-mark fumes,
the ash of progress, some proxy
world that forcefully attracts you, holds you,
pressing your child-face on the chain link,
while way deep down it whispers or coos:
“i will grow, get colder, denser, of great
darkness, till nothing more escapes my rule,
no star, no grain of dust, not even light.”
Translated from the German
Notes:
Read the German-language original, “reifen,” and the translator’s note by David Keplinger.
Source:
Poetry
(April 2024)
