AMBUCE

for one entire summer, namely the summer of ’95, i was in the habit
of embarking to café the stork
to consume some odd number of warm beers with antibiotics
untill I saw tiny stars…

then, finally, I let my head sink slowly on my breast,
then came, in the hour between swallow and bat,
a blonde, barely fifty years old,
asking me(worried): – what’s the matter?

-… an … ambulance,
I said with a rattle,
apparently
at the end of my strenght.

at once there came an ambulance.
- what’s the matter, thus spoke the driver.

- an … ambulance… to
café
the niche – at… at
the northside, s’il
vous plaît…

thus i crossed the entire city,
free of charge,on the house,
many nights long,
- those were the days!!..

Vitalski
(transl. Leander Hanssen)