Poem by the Dutch poet Eva Gerlach

VOCABULARY

This is your eye. This is the sun. This tugging
cold, draught from a window left ajar.
This is water that fits you like a glove

That is the kettle singing on the stove
above the four knobs that control the gas.
Here you’ve the breadknife in its board’s long groove.

All of these things you need to keep a grasp of.
Today, or soon, their say will make their sense.


(from the collection 'Een kopstaand beeld', 1983)