A poem from 'Rib Cities' by the Swedish poet Eva Ström

The loving couple

The loving couple

thin with age, golden-wedding tinged

with brains worn into holes

have become disobedient children

that hide the security alarm

and live clocklessly outside the schedule

among left-overs and dizziness squalor

still in love, elated

in dried-out deposits of memory

disclaim the connection

with the ticking of the metronome

An age has forced its way out

is planning a weak-sighted wedding

rummaging among underclothes

for a down-soft memory

something infantile lingers

at the temple, sweeps past

the dry tears of the ear-conch,

shreds the account

into illegible chips

stretches the features

to thin grimaces

outside the limiting tracks

of the nervous system.