Doleful World Garden
(homophonic translation of Werner Aspenstrom’s “Du och Jag och Världen”)
Forget the interim, it is auger and lager, oaked fervor halting mid-air at the morning whistle. Late, the professor ran the train to the hall’s bell top, hoping to stall those whose shells blacken with boarding, impervious to the sink’s salve. Stop digging captions, loosen the tambourine, stand down. Late, the professor’s daughter volleys her wares. It’s hard to know why, then someone divines the garden’s larva. And then someone asks her, are you on fire? And then someone hot-steps the garden’s lava. Her reign over fall slackens first, then falling farther over orchids, aubades and lovers falter—and daughter, is the dawn railing, or ringing?
Colleen Coyne is the author of two poetry chapbooks: This Document Should Be Retained as Evidence of Your Journey (Jacar Press) and Girls Mistaken for Ghosts (dancing girl press). Her work has appeared in DIAGRAM, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Sou’wester, and elsewhere. She lives in Massachusetts, where she is an associate professor of English at Framingham State University, and she travels frequently to explore historic cemeteries, national parks, and other sites of memory.
