The big voice
roars above me:
A stroke of
happiness goes over Falsterbo.
I see a double-bass that’s
heavily belaboured.
Round suns or cheeses shoot off
from its strings
I hide myself in dad’s old black piano
and with a comb poke at the strings inside it.
Dust and rust and a musty smell descend on me
along with an untuned F-sharp from the 1800s.
The big voice
moves along and uncle-rumbles:
A stroke of
happiness goes over Falsterbo.
The little voice
pipes close to me:
A stroke of
happiness goes over Abisko.
I see a little fiddle fiddling
down there.
It is a muted sound of need and
northern lights.
I pound it to death with the heel of my boot
and play Jumpin’ in the sun on double manuals.
The pedal-organist pounds the pedals up and down.
A spider trembles on its
ceiling thread.
The little voice
creeps over death’s threshold piping:
A stroke of
happiness goes over Abisko.
I grow into a
youth, highly erotic, searching
on dad’s map for
Falsterbo and Abisko.
A young man is erotic. He stands
at the window
seeking and conducting. The young
girl
is erotic. Cycling grammar school teachers
fall over each other in a heap in the street.
A mixed-up sound of saxophone and harpsichord,
policeman’s whistle and frightened cycle-bells.
I give them a
fortissimo and everybody screams.
The sun burns
into my father’s map of Sweden behind me.
Afterwards we
sit and comment on what happened
gathered in
generations round the 60-watt bulb:
How the midwives themselves
became prolific
and the tinned sardines gave
birth to young.
How soundlessly all flights of birds moved
southwards and northwards over a mapless country.
How all voices fell silent and went into exile,
became mute sheep in flocks on some alien planet.
The violinist in
us draws his bow and everybody hums:
doh re mi fa so.
Then even the children fall silent.
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