Pia Juul: 'Du sover'

 

You’re asleep

and I see the elephant-bird

flying heavily above the strange trees

The long-legged ape

that isn’t an ape

leaping fearlessly from tree to tree

Extinct. No longer exists.

 

I’m cold in the mouth

Yesterday it was full

of oysters, and I thought

to croak like that, choked in

the soft innards of that

hard crustacean.

Now the cold, where’s it

coming from, for all

the other parts of my body

are on fire as always

blazing away

flushed red with rage

heart-swelling tenderness

but cold in the mouth

that’s what I am today