Early On I Evaded—

^{translated from the Danish by Jennifer Russell and Sophia Hersi Smith}

Early on I evaded
my mother’s caresses
(she who was caressed by no one)
because her hands that day
smelled of dishwashing.
Hurt and confused
she withdrew, hasty as she was,
and gave up once and for all
on the work of loving me.
Like all proletarians she suffered
from toothaches often and cared
very little for men.

Twelve years old
hopelessly in awe
I watched her
leave for the carnival
repelling the ambush of old age
dressed up as an ‘Eighteenth-Century
Coachman’ which earned her
a bad reputation
in the neighbourhood where only men
had the right to go off the rails.

She died knowing no one.
Her bewildered hands crept
across the blanket
as though searching for something
that no longer existed.

I always scrubbed my hands with nice soap
after doing the dishes
but it was no use.
The smell was inherited
and my children abhorred it.

– All my darling runaway children
who rest easy knowing
there is time for remorse
between the stirrup and the ground.

The youngest of them
a timid contemplative
quiet-seeking boy
was fond of his grandmother.
Love often
skips a generation –