POETRY IS LIKE TAKING A DEEP BREATH

Tuesday 27 July 2010

THE IRONMONGER'S SHOP






Two elderly orphans 
who inherited it
when they were nineteen,
nineteen years ago.

Nuns in washed-out aprons,
walled in by leaden chests
of drawers,
tacks and adjusting screws
between their lips.

Their rosy devotion,
their greying eagerness
under the naked lightbulb,
the grey smell of grease,
of rubber, metal and putty.

Enormous wrenches, breast drills
in unloved hands.
The moist tongue
longing for another mouth
while the bill is made out.

Is this what you dreamt of,
Primal Soup? Weltgeist,
did you have your wits about you?
Was that all you had in mind,
Divine Providence?

Two elderly sisters
imprisoned for life
in an ironmonger's shop?

Their rosy eagerness,
their grey devotion
to the emery paper?


Hans Magnus Enzensberger
1929-

Translated from the German by the Author





The photograph is of the shopfront
of Bunner's Hardware Store in 
Montgomery, Powys, which has been
trading since 1892. Bunner's is still family-run 
and largely unchanged.