other nights

- we set our nets and hooks

in filmy stillwater –

we fetched them again in the morning –

then the water could be

like sloping green walls,

falling down into dust –

 

- some nights we got a good catch –

then the nets looked

like the stomachs of pregnant women –

like large, glossy chestnuts on a thread

the hooks with fat dangling fish crept

slowly out of the water,

which then was still and filmy –

- other nights we forsook the nets –

 

- we set our nets and hooks

in the evening –

in the night we went with moist eyes

into town –

we were newly washed and in blue clothes –

there went the young women

with burning red cheeks

like ripe fruits –

 

- in the morning

there were places outside of town,

where the grass looked,

as if large animals had fought there

that night –

- other nights we forsook the nets –