ball-lightning, hammond organ

by Ulrike Draesner
          translated from German by Iain Galbraith

but didn’t she
but didn’t she die
but didn’t she revive
and was therefore risen — struck
in the kitchen while stirring the pastry
while cooking pudding yellow it roared
right into the pot, mercy, gall and fire jelly —
but down she fell ever so lightly touched
where a brain artery and nerve tissue crossed
. . . the yard flashing with two empty plastic bags
heart sacs floating straight through the air
with the throbbing bags all at once
cowering in a corner up on the kitchen
ceiling the yellow bubbling pan the lew–warm
wafting of plastic in the yard knew
he was there below her kneeling at the strike–point
grief–struck, foiled, all bent on fencing
the bags fluttering over the yard as if calling her
because
     and because
          she’d sensed this body–howling of his at the hearth
a pleading blackbird’s beak so yellow and tender she was touched
re–entering that is risen again in the kitchen
on the floor her eyes fearful across the yard
flashed a starling but thus did she
but thus did she
stay, a scar on her knee
inconspicuous — 20 seconds
of female ulysses on a lightning visit
a strand of hair curling
in her cleavage its
blond now dyed brown
and thus she zizzed across the sea
says she meant zipped