A blonde woman asks me
Why did you come?
A vague question
A red question
Its answer more dangerous than the question itself
Why did you come?
I answer: by chance
By chance I came into this world
The curse of my birthplace afflicted me
By chance the colour of my skin
By chance my native language
And here, where the trains only sometimes depart late
And the poor regularly receive state money
And people fill their spare time with work
Here, where people speak the language of riddles
And only laugh when they are drunk
By chance, too, I came here
And between these chance events lay the search for a fatherland
That wears no official cloak
And no nationalist cloak
A fatherland like a child’s dream of toys
Or the yearning of a young person for a kiss
A fatherland whose definition is found in no dictionary
Why did you come, she asks
I answer
I came in search of a fatherland
Where nothing is forbidden and nothing permitted
A fatherland where the sky touches children’s head
And where the clouds kiss the hearts of virgins
A fatherland where the sun and the moon
Sit in parliament, and only the light governs
Between these chances I lived time in vain
In search of a fatherland without hills and valleys
Except for the hills and valleys of a woman’s body
In which I can drown with delight every day
In order to be an honourable citizen
But I discover
That humans have no fatherland
Except the womb
