The Couple
A poem by Tomas Tranströmer translated from Swedish by Daniel Carden Nemo
They turn off the lamp and its white halo glimmers
for a moment before dissolving like a tablet
in a glass of darkness. Then it lifts.
The hotel walls shoot up into the night sky.
The movements of love have faded and they’re sleeping
but their most secret thoughts meet and bleed into each other
like colors on the wet paper of a schoolboy’s painting.
It is dark and quiet. The city creeps up tonight,
all windows shut. Houses draw near.
They crowd in closer, watchful, an audience of blank faces.
