Das is for things
imported from Fremdsprache
and other economies
reporting permission
slips for deemed
sound Dinge und people
on the Ostsee also
which we saw
crossing the Warnemünde Ferry
in August and
naked old men leaving bikes
at the FKK and the six-story Soviet
era right to vacation
illuminated in receding
gold that also, so-late, your mother says
warmed strawberries, turned to reds,
and your oiled thighs,
and Aldi stunners and the cruise
ships and the fishing
boats spewing mackerel and Bismarck and
very long very
regular containers and
the seagull that ate my sorbet
and the Korean, the Roman, the Chinese script
that we recognize
from the heavy train that raged
carrying nobody but things
turning at the squeal of a
lever in the capital
westbound southbound
through the final Gleis
of the small Bahnhof
leaving Pfand bottles, Yormas, everything
all rattling
and, you, far too close to that
thin painted red line
relaying how those thirty
seconds resemble, every time, an entire life
Andrew Wildermuth is a PhD student in North American studies and member of the research group “Das Sentimentale” at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. His critical work can be read in Iperstoria, aspeers, and Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik. His recent poems have appeared in Columbia Journal, Cold Mountain Review, and Miracle Monocle.
