Ana Brnardić - THE SPHERE-LIKE VILLAGE

We were spending our summer holiday in a village
where sage, human fingers and cat’s tails were growing out of the walls.
Underneath the windows fish were lined up.
Moonlight was dripping down from them
onto the heads of those gone astray,
onto the stone plaques.
Here comes the sun again! Poppy petals trepidate
behind the hill, the sky is
drying out turning back into a stone plague,
the enigma resolved by the old.
Around noon when heads pop open from the heat,
the sun sinks into the sea, the sun that now can actually
be looked at.
We climb the cliff.
Below are the ant-people, breadcrumb-people.
Wealthy tourists like botanic specimens, supple blades
of reason.
Here comes the evening again! The village
gathered into a sphere.
The blades bent down, sucked into the invisible
mouths of houses.
We crumble the dry crumbs of evening
uncertainty,
because there is no sun or moon, every trace of life
has been carried over to the other hemisphere.

Translated by Damir Šodan and Majda Bakočević
en_GBEN