Monday, 17 May 2021

Kjell Espmark: 'Skylten på gränsstationen'


 


The sign at the border station was erased

like everything human

by the drifting mist.

He held my passport at arm’s length

as if it was a stool sample.

Walter Benjamin? An upward glance.

He pretended to leaf through a folder

and out of consideration for my health

granted me a last night at Hôtel de France.

I closed the door behind me –

it was skewiff and ought to be fixed.

 

When Walter Benjamin, fleeing from the Nazis, was refused permission

to cross the border into Spain, he took his own life.

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