Poem by Eva Gerlach from 'Situaties' (2007)

HELLEBOSCH, 5

Someone sings in the house behind doors that are five,

walls that are ten centimetres, bawling,

bellowing, someone scrubs herself bare, lets

air loose everywhere. In pipes and against

tiles, window-panes and thing contrary to

floor what you call? then an echo,

a whistling proceeds, a resonance audible

even in hearths and in logs, sweeping via

chimney flue over beeches, puff balls, sawdust

of guile bug, woe beetle, tumbling on cabbages and

ricocheting against village eardrums. Other than

this song soon nothing will exist. Drum, air,

on the skin round death in the fruit, fair

bursting out of its peel, so. Hours so. Days.