COLOR

by Ulrike Almut Sandig
          translated from German by Bradley Schmidt

*

shoot a PICTURE: my clothes are
blue. forget me not. this flower is blue.
everything that we have is also important!
yes, everything is blue! my darling is a sailor.
weasels are blue, this weather is blue, your
screen is blue, the poems are blue, my
pipe is always my pipe, my smoke
is blue, all rings are blue, the sky
is blue. you’re singing: velvet
should also be blue.

**

seen close up the earth produces neither a picture,
nor does it merely look blue from a distance. just like
small clothes, smoke, love, stems of flowers. seen from
here nothing is blue. just as little as a screen. screen
ain’t blue. screen is the melancholic GAP, covered
by weather charts. screen is absence of things.
my ring is not blue, material is not blue,
weather charts are not blue. the sky
should not be blue either.