While waiting for the bus, I warm the insides of my thighs
on a wooden bench.
In summer, you must be obsessive and just
have to go swimming to tire yourself out and realize
there is no time, only memory.
The sea can be replaced by a lake, the lake with a river,
poplars with plane trees, the Belarusian town
with a Swiss village.
But you're still sitting on a wooden bench
thinking of nothing.
Kids return from the beach.
They don't yet know how to read or write.
They have to carry everything inside themselves.
That's how memory grows.
They fidget, chatter, argue, tussle.
The teacher says something and straight
away, they take the hand of whoever's standing next to them.
That simply, that naturally.
It doesn't matter who it is, a friend or enemy.
They don't exist yet.
They'll arrive later with the letters.
But right now, there is only here and now,
and the feel of a hand being put into yours so as to be there
in case of danger.
[APPLAUSE & LAUGHTER]
I'm not sure.
Now you will have to applause after every poem
so that poems don't feel offended.
[LAUGHTER]
And some poems of mine are very small.
So I worry about your palms.
But thank you.