Matthias Göritz

Trolleybus No. 3

To Stand

Translated by Mary Jo Bang

Translated from the German by Mary Jo Bang

Hello, soldiers of fortune

A hero sets out, in the city to buy, in the wee hours, milk, traveling by trolley and bus

over the powdering-gown of traffic a white line in a lavender shoe

over the long boulevard, the roundabout

past someone feeding me lines from the city, Sputnik news

past past...conflicts...and beyond those Abkhasia... more than 107 in the shade...the Silverdome... and 5 to 1...the soccer

is still at—

I have never been so far from mastery as now —when

the Sport Express exits, a mirror of before is over over

the how many lives are there in this fishy business, in green cock-tails, in green lean-tos, in the drawn lines of a city? past where I am still on the bus? past...and one more question...is God... a relative...velocity,

in a café, where you, Mother, your head never would have stood to be carried

past and so you are so over

even a hero running out of milk goes out to buy

out there

and how far would you...go to get away, to simply sit at the edge of Red Square, careful not to fall over, and to keep outside the reach of the machine sweeping the streets

evenings, when more photos still will be made, gradually, from the things that are there, towers, stone, the light, and you, as a relative witness, will you turn into a tower, a yellow dream, a photo, a future distance, that drives you,

to what yet doesn’t exist past where a mouth filled with fatigue is gray fur