To The Gardener

by Marko Pogacar

Rosehips in garden beds, no–one expresses opinions,
figs, dried and fresh,

both hollowed out with beaks, overhead an absence of earth,
which is the sky. the scarecrow has ceased to do what it’s supposed to.

curves elongate time, but they don’t make it filled, precise,
like telephone wires that pressure us into closeness, connect us

with other beings, the scarecrow works in a completely opposite
way than the telephone, this morning a dog drank the marrow from its legs

and it fell, a carbonized cross before a black man’s house, clothes that you can’t
take off. such is the mechanism of nature:

everything we have sown sprouts, regardless of little obstacles, long afternoons, and
inner balance, everyone always says: sure,

and all the friction invested in the transformation of love into the endlessly
small packages of life means nothing now: rosehips dried, time elongated
     and clean,

the earth’s full offer to love me rotting in my chest, everywhere around unbound
vowels, open hands, weeds and much more.

translated by Dunja Bahtijarevic and Anthony Mccann