Imagine the baker

Women who laugh, by Maria Khan

Translated from German by Paul-Henri Campbell

you need to imagine the baker
as a happy person
every morning in his store
among the premium bagels and Schrippen
you make sure
that the sun rises

you need to imagine Schrippen
as happy Schrippen
in a paper bag they are huddled together
at your heart rustling and warm
you hop onto the next circle line

you need to imagine the circle line
as a happy circle line
while backyards and the heavens in your eyes
pass day after day
sharing a piece of its circular flow
through the throbbing city

you need to imagine Berlin
as a happy city
the annual possible sunshine duration spiked
raising the level of light the musicality
of its citizens the starlings no longer think about
clearing the fields in the winter

you need to imagine the starlings
as happy starlings
each evening you are marveling at their song
striking a match on the balcony
smiling while you let the end of the day
be carried away in purple haze

“you need to imagine the baker”
I just wrote a moment ago
as you came to me like every evening
and turned off the light
“as a happy person”
but I do not envy him

~ Sybil Volks

Sybil Volks was born in 1965 and lives in Berlin. She studied literary history, philosophy, and psychology and worked as a lecturer for German Literature in Hungary. Many of her poems and short stories have been anthologized and featured in literary magazines. In 2007 her crime novel based in Berlin, ‘Café Größenwahn’, was nominated for the Glauser-Prize for best debut. Her second Berlin novel ‘Torstraße 1’ was published by dtv in 2012; the audiobook version was published by GoyaLiT.

Paul-Henri Campbell, born 1982 in Boston (USA), is a German-American poet and translator. He studied Classical Greek Philology and Catholic Theology. He is Managing Editor of DAS GEDICHT Chapbook. German Poetry Now, an annual anthology that presents poetry from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Israel in English translation. His most recent collection of poetry is ‘Am Ende der Zeilen’ (At the end of Days) (2013).