In a distant memory, narrow Adamczewski Street
goes round our eyes until it opens into
the graveyard on top of the hill, where children play
king of the castle in a birdless tree.
Here the shadow of death is as present as that of the afternoon;
luckily it’s barely past midday and the old folks
drink herb brandy at the café expecting almost anything
but the scream of a flower that hopes for a destiny.
But we hear it and our time is changed,
as if we were able, ear to the ground,
to associate the triumph of the ants with that of our ancestors
as they walked side by side, arm in arm up Adamczewski Street
towards the graveyard, singing
If it isn’t the dead who guard us,
why do we lay them there?