This is what he remembers Of her who left him behind in Another summer much like this:

Those rooms that are fading into A summer darkness, sometime After nine or ten, traffic steady On the road beyond those high Windows, a breeze ruffling pages Of books on pillows, some of which He gave as presents, as flowers to make Up for the stone that clasped the rasp Of his unspeaking throat - and that Calm town in which nothing really Happened, and hence was the cause of slow Despair - without some diversion or Amusement, love divorces itself From romance, becomes too domestic, And too common and comforting.

Now it is only these commonplace Details that remain to form a membrane Over the remains of those days - how Her mouth moved in laughter between Morsels of food, her hair spread across His arm under a willow, a shadowed forest, And how sometimes was domesticated and tied High over her delicate nape in intricate braids. Also humming as hands moved over a stove - an flammable piano - made breakfast, poured Juice, sliced cheese, touched his face sometimes To remind him that he is not stone...

Sometimes when the heart remembers All this, it feels like a book snatched From her hands by vandals to be used As kindling in their forges of bone.

Autumn eats its leaf out of my hand: we are friends. From the nuts we shell time and we teach it to walk: then time returns to the shell.

In the mirror it’s Sunday, in dream there is room for sleeping, our mouths speak the truth.

My eye moves down to the sex of my loved one: we look at each other, we exchange dark words, we love each other like poppy and recollection, we sleep like wine in the conches, like the sea in the moon’s blood ray.

We stand by the window embracing, and people look up from the street: it is time they knew! It is time the stone made an effort to flower, time unrest had a beating heart. It is time it were time.

It is time.

Translated from German by Michael Hamburger