Ich hatte ein Wort (I Had a Word) 

I had a word

a long, homespun one like guttering, with wheels,

narrow like a dugout or something that’s meant to channel cement

no more than a model, stream-lined and wind-swept, but mine

I had a word

a round one, round as an orange

now and then at midnight it lit up the whole interior for me

its fruit was overgrown as in nature

with a photo of the moon beside the bed

Someone has concealed the meaning from me

in a corner very far away hidden too

I’ve got no proof

di di di…

I had a word

an alien one, most inimical to me…

one day it grew with little heads on either side out of my skin

then in the morning we three mustered each other in the mirror 

and found it hard to believe – so unfamiliar

somehow it then also disclosed itself to me

no longer kept itself hidden in its corner

there was the proof

di di di…

I’ve travelled to the farthest corners 

in search of the meaning, of this proof

of a word I now finally know again

that I bore within myself that I will never surrender again

I will never ever surrender it again…