Izmir, Three O'Clock

A poem by Tomas Tranströmer translated from Swedish by Daniel Carden Nemo

Photo by Mustafa Kılıç on Unsplash

Just ahead on the nearly empty street
two beggars, one of them with no legs,
carried on the other’s back.

They stood—as an animal stands
on a midnight road, frozen in the headlights—
for a moment, then went on

crossing the street like schoolboys at play
while the myriad clocks
of the midday heat ticked in space.

Blue shimmered across the roadstead.
Black crept and shrank, staring out of stone.
White swelled into a storm in the eye.

When three o’clock was trampled under hooves
and darkness pounded in the wall of light,
the city lay crawling at the sea’s door

gleaming in the vulture’s telescopic sight.

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From Hemligheter på vägen (Secrets on the Way), 1958

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