Glass
Li Po was glass.
Kant was glass.
We observe ourselves like transparent
sea anemones.
We see the dark purple heart
beating,
we see the grey lungs, wings
rising and falling,
we see the oligochaetic
worms of thought
gnawing under the cap.
Linnaeus was glass.
Mozart was glass.
Franz Josef was glass.
In the transparent belly
we see the tubular moon,
and behind the crystalline mouth
the swallowed words.
A prisoner is glass,
a policeman is glass,
sixty glass robots
reside in the castle.
Behind the swallowed words
we see the glass-wool
of incessant melody.
Only the dead
draw the curtain
from within.
-- trans. David Young & Dana Hábová
fr. Miroslav Holub, Intensive Care [Oberlin College Press, 1996]
