A poem by the Dutch poet Eva Gerlach

man alive

He’s there outside, a fly lands on his tongue and

he spits it out, checks if it’s living, allows it                      

to dry in his hand, with his stick touches all of the

mulberry tree’s yellow leaves, each one in turn,

they fall at his feet. And the crow

forsakes him not.

You want him, he’s never again that man out there,

you’ve only just seen him and yet: at no time before

so perfectly framed in the light, man a-

live, all you know of him touches now

all that you see of him, there in the crook

of the question-mark mulberry tree

standing briefly translucent,

how you see him, his whole face

uplifted, the triangle under his chin, with the throat

most vulnerable, the skin there

now taut – never yours in this way, except when

inside you perhaps, forgotten – you want him, rap

on the window, he sees you, the fly he

throws up from his hand and upward it flies.