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      January 18, 2019August EveningMax Sessner

      and chlorine scent on my shirt from
      the swimming pool the aunts
      are there smiling slipping me
      small change and what do you
      want to be someday they
      ask the spirit I say of the
      boy who drowned last
      year while swimming
      his bicycle still stood in winter
      in front of the pool oh they sigh
      and one scuttles to the bathroom
      no one budges until
      finally there’s a flush

      —translated from the German by Francesca Bell

      from #61 - Fall 2018

      Max Sessner

      “Why do I love poems? Every morning, I rode the bus from the village into the city to school. At one station, the old poet boarded. He was fat and looked friendly, a little like Pablo Neruda. He seated himself with the women who were also riding into the city. Unexpectedly, he began to recite his poems. The women laughed. I was impressed. They maybe weren’t especially good poems, but what does that mean? For a moment, the bus was a driving poem, and I sat inside it.”

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