Poem by the Swedish poet Lennart Sjögren

Who doesn’t dream

I saw a rat cross the road

it had a human face

it was a small rat

smaller than my shoe.

It asked me the direction of the place

where it could die in peace.

What was I to answer such a question

that was so like my own.

I tried half a biblical quotation:

go to the place where the dead bury

their dead – maybe it lies in the west.

But that didn’t help at all

and when I changed it to:

go to the place where the unborn

meet those still alive – maybe it lies in the east,

and inquire whether a death can be obtained

there at a reasonable price

it had already disappeared.

And who doesn’t dream of a quiet death –

the sooner the better one says

but does not mean anything by it.

Whether there was frost that morning

or summer – I can’t recall

but the dreams stood in queues along the road

not wholly unlike wingless upright birds.