BERLIN
Darkness fell upon these streets
While the eastern Russian winds paralyze my spine
With each step, I hear the whimpers of the past
The sensual moans of new-found lovers
Who don’t know each other’s names,
But when prompted, they caress each other’s nipples
while their limbs fall into each other’s bodies
As I wander through Berlin
Where the fog towers over the grey buildings
on Sonnenallee
Where the streetlights glare against the frosted windows
And anonymous shadows are transient guests on the pavement
This is the city where my memories are
Fossilized corpses
Fragmented notes that are abandoned by age
The honking cars, street hustlers, and bodega cats of Brooklyn
are a distant dream
Disjointed recollections of tenderness
Lost in this East German city
These memories, hoping to escape by daybreak
Here, the alleyways are desolate in winter
Mostly due to the truant foliage
That would rather die than remain frozen on these latent trees
Unlike the rain, snowflakes do not drown us
Instead, they glide from the greyish sky to the asphalt
Ephemeral
Barely leaving a trace
Little by little, the city unearths itself
Exhibiting the new and somewhat abused
People who bring
their own rhythm
their own stories
And semblance to a quiet dawn
Even when they are left out
They too, wander (through these streets)
Contributed by
Edna Bonhomme https://www.ednabonhomme.com/