Per Brask

On H.C. Andersen Boulevard during rush hour

On H.C. Andersen Boulevard during rush hour
around five o’clock I’m a speck of stardust on a bicycle
wrapped in my life’s nanosecond, my life’s nanosecond,
my life’s nanosecond and this poem that doesn’t really
fit in anywhere either, and I have already wasted an infinitely
immeasurable fraction of the light intended for me, as I just
manage to glimpse the wing tip of a herring gull tear
a white cut into the air above Langebro, a tear in the blue
and there you are and there’s my daughter, the strings, the wind
instruments, a tiny stage and a fragile ship ascending on
the waving pillar of smoke from a cigarette someone
tosses and butts right now under the heel against a flagstone
in the universe and a bleeding cut on the lip screams,
have I loved, have I loved, have I loved enough.

From Frayed Opus for Strings & Wind Instruments by Per Brask and Patrick Friesen translating from Danish by Ulrikka S. Gernes

Copyright © Danish Copyright © 2015 by Ulrikka S Gernes / English Translation Copyright © 2015 by Per Brask and Patrick Friesen