Room 421 - Menno Wigman

My mother’s near kaput. She’s got a hutch,
not quite a box, and sits the same day out
each day on her much pissed-on chair. Can stare
at trees outside, and in those trees are birds
that know not who has once begotten them.

I’ve been her son now over forty years
and pay her calls and don’t know who I greet.
She’s read to me aloud, and tucked me up.
She falters, stalls, gets stuck. She’s near kaput.

No beast thinks of its mother, so they say.
With trembling hand I spoon food in her mouth
am almost certain she still knows my face.

It must be blackbirds. On and on they churn.
The earth cries out. And curse on curse is heard.

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Menno Wigman (born 1966) The Netherlands
Translated by John Irons
Source: Poetry International