Glasswork

Glasswork


BY HESTER KNIBBE
TRANSLATED BY JACQUELYN POPE


my love who shelters in his words
sometimes falls silent for a sudden eternity
breathes that silence into a bell of glass
in which he calms storms


he draws lee lines in what was
it’s more like a firefirm crackling
when he takes up words with ease
in a single glance, caressing my body


I read him day and night. What will it be like
when he withdraws into the word old,
arranges a last room, silver-white,
pushes the furniture a bit closer together


and crams still more fragile glass inside—
what will it be like when he grows transparent and breaks