I am not me.
I and this country I migrated to, we are not one.
I write and I object in my poetry.
And then I wait for answers every night.
But not for threats on the phone.
And not for the secret police at the door at dawn.
What a boring poet I have become.
I was never in prison and no one broke my fingers.
I write as If I had no worries.
I can’t find a title for my poems in Berlin.
In this city that loves to enjoy itself.
No one in Berlin denounces me.
The authorities execute no search warrant.
All they ask me is:
Have you paid your taxes and when are you going on holiday?
In Berlin the night is sleeping with the women.
In Berlin they laugh about those who come late to bed with full-thimbled spirits.
Me though, I stay up with my poems.
For my conflict with history, my own, is unresolved.
We wait, the both of us.
My homeland is on the brink of death.
And I’m looking for the keys to my house in its death rattle.
No more commas to come, just a full stop.
That is my me.
Every night.
Yet me I am not.
