Poem by the Dutch and Groningen dialect writer Jan Glas

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AS IF SHE WAS MY WIFE

I found her half-frozen.

All winter she’d been waiting for the geese.

I took her in as if she was my wife.

Once inside she put plastic bags

round her dirty feet.

‘Oh, there’s really no need to do that,’ I said.

Rustling she went over to the fridge.

I went to change my bedclothes.

‘Do you realise

you’ve escaped from heaven?’

Yes, she realised that.

Upstairs I stood for a moment

at the bedroom window.

The water in the pond, I noticed,

had turned into fish.