Interior
–Boris A Novak
Mysterious are the characters of things close to us:
familiar as a man’s face, but strangely near
from ceaseless use: but between the two
who is a man and who is a garment?

Silent is the tongue of the shoes put on.
(Things that serve are silent.)
When I take them off, they suddenly speak up:
a bottomless abyss since I am no longer there.

When I take off my glasses, what do they see?
Without them I see only myself. Insane.
Things live, I am alive and alone.

I sleep alone in a closet. When I unlock my eyelids,
I see gaping sleeves of my jacket
and my trousers without my legs. Empty.