13

metal, the ore in the mountain, exists,

darkness in mine shafts, milk not let down
from mother's breasts, an ingrown dread where

whisperings exist, whisperings exist
the cell's oldest, fondest collusion

consider this market, consider this import
and export of fathers, half bullies
half tortured soldiers, consider

their barren last vanishing, metal
to metal, as the amount of unsown maize
grows and the water shortage grows

speak now of mildness, now of the mystery
of salt; speak now of mediation, of mankind, of
courage; tell me that the marble of banks
can be eaten; tell me that the moon is lovely,
that the extinct moa easts green melon,

that merriment exists, is thriving,
that moss animals and mackerel shoals exist, that
means of giving up, of descent, exist, and
physical portioning out, as in poems, of matchless
earthly goods, that pity exists

Inger Christensen, Alphabet, Susanna Nied, 2000