at night her hands are the hands of daughters.
her legs a failed escape.
and if she falls asleep,
fastened to the fears of mothers and their mothers’ mothers,

finally,

finally,
she wants to wake up somebody else.

and not

a navy blue Polonez without tires or windshields,
in which the first construction workers arrived at the estate.
and not
standing like this, rusty at the belly,
its entrails crumbling with ginger dust.
and not
cans on the back seat, a dirty rope,
a blanket on which little torturers sleep
from Suwalska, Turmoncka, Chodecka
and not
a shabby merry-go-round, after which one pukes,
a carpet beater, from which one falls,
because after so many years of childhood on asphalt no other play makes sense.

and not

a concrete flowerbed pressed with pebbles,
a marigold fatigued with photosynthesis in permanent shadow.

daughter, here shadows are cast by ten-storey buildings.
deaf pride pulsating into the sky with hot tar paper and antennas.
calm your breath, bring a plastic washbowl
into cubes of steam, streams of cellars, into laundry as stiff as shutters.

and boil the starch and stir the starch! stay!
and not.

at night her ears are ringing
as if the whole via baltica had exploded (dreams),
if she falls asleep,

finally,

finally,
she wants to wake up somebody else.

a packaging factory for jigsaw puzzles and model planes,
into which one jumps over a pile of rubble torments her.
giant fibreglass tubes to which they clung all summer torment her.

the guy from the guardhouse running towards them from the other end of the square torments her.

the priest kicking them out of a church construction site in Kondratowicza torments her.
and hot dogs in a small schoolbag torment her.

snails and the kindergarten torment her.

the kindergarten and the school opposite the kindergarten torment her.
voting at the school and artwork on the walls torment her.

she voted a few years ago, stringy, luminous in her crossfit.

the summer sun, the wind from east to west was blazing.
that night she didn’t sleep, she was afraid to close her eyes at someone’s

who, as they came closer, turned into a bull.

nothing has changed, she was still an animal at the mercy of grassy state farms.

she left to nowhere.

she saw her reflection in the windows of cars,
skinny and angular in her trained form.

she was the body of a Polonez, a parking lot,
all navy blue, flaking in orange.

and again, you cloud of noise, you soft asphalt, a red brick wall,
on which someone wrote crass,
you cemetery, you fingerprint of anyone born in the Bródno hospital,
finally,

finally!

and not
a foldout, a carpet with bald patches from an iron,
brownness, mustard, vinegar,
meat on the balcony, the whole winter, the whole winter, a corpse, the smell.
and not
an overpass by the window, a road, the roars of the drunks,
who like ants walked one after another carrying the leaves of their jackets on their backs.

and not.

at night her face is the faces of others.

of mothers, children, their children’s children, and so it grows

this navy blue pyramid of generations,

this Polonez

by her cage,

belly crumbling on the sheets.

the cans are knocking, the ceiling’s ablaze, so is the carpet and the wind.

she should close the balcony door.

if she falls asleep,

finally the ringing stops.

Translated by Mark Tardi