Translated from the German by Elizabeth Oehlkers Wright

We waited
for the winter wren, the snow king,
not one bird
flew into the pane
The birch tree disappeared
and I bought another round
of white wine
Neighbor Glasseye said
IN THE OLD DAYS WE HAD TWO
SLEIGHS IN THE STALL
AND NOT THE
GHOST OF A HORSE
Then he roasted Subletter Steaks
on the flat-iron*
BUT IN THE LABORATORIES I SAID
NOW YOU CAN EVEN
MANUFACTURE WORMS
FROM A THOUSAND LITTLE PIECES
And so on.
Don’t ask me
what anyone else is running off
at the mouth about
At any rate no one came
by or only just
as I was away from the window

*wallsocket in the stairwell

Kito Lorenc (1938–2017) wrote in German and also in Sorbic, the language of a tiny minority in eastern Germany about which even Germans know very little. His books include Gegen den Großen Popanz (Against the Great Bogeyman, Aufbau, 1990) and Suki w zakach (Sorbic, roughly “Knots in the Pockets,” Domowina-Verlag, 1998).

Elizabeth Oehlkers Wright is a translator of contemporary German poetry and writing. Her translations have appeared in journals including AGNI, Slope, and Seneca Review. (2010)