This morning you will wake

This morning you will wake
and get out of bed, naked and young
like the snow which impatiently lines
the rooftops and asphalt;

this morning you will slowly approach
the tarnished dresser mirror
not recognizing the gaze there,
the hands and the knot of the navel.

Once again you are slow to understand
when the soul changes its style
of dress for the latest fashion,
when eyes grow red from reading,

and the old Prussian over whom you burned
the midnight oil cries out to you that all
efforts end in the coffin – the draft
shudders, the veins throb

and the door opens to swallow the sky.
I bet I can; I bet,
that you too will believe it. Snowflakes
gust from the ridge of a roof,

the clearing catches fire, the thought
that this morning by laughing you’ll be able
to reverse the springmelt, shatter the mirror,
hold onto the unclothed life.