so much silk unrolls

 

continually under my skin

 

that the guardians had to move me

 

to the temple

 

among the clergy of the tavern

 

they said, here, little one,

 

you’ll learn how to write by throwing a leg over the wind

 

and with the wind over the city seas

 

you’ll learn the trade

 

of flinging flying pencils

 

(so with eyes closed you unknot the navel

 

and cut the nipple)

 

 

 

I saw how crazy teachers sing and kiss

 

how they jump over the linden and the water tower

 

sometimes tipsy they run along the walls of houses

 

but in the morning they soberly sweep their naked rooms

 

gently dress their naked women and young men

 

and bind what’s left of their hair

 

into bundled sentences

 

hover over holy keyboards

 

 

I first mastered homemaking

 

I folded all the silk into bales

 

like in a little fabric shop

 

it took me thirty years

 

and I’ll need that many more

 

to sort the word buttons

 

and all of their use

 

 

 

meanwhile, I’m afraid,

 

the teachers will get old, finish smoking their pipes of hope

 

and with them both courage and wisdom

 

I worry about what will happen to their bones in the books

 

not a living soul will be able

 

to assemble a poet

translated from Croatian by Andrea Jurjević