Life when you taste it,
It’s handsome and fatal,
A tall, dark stranger at every corner table,
Something whispered, a woman with a flower
On her shoulder, her nipples like living ice.
Life, certainly a romantic word,
When you taste it, Robin Hood, oak tree,
Dark-faced like a big river,
Laser lights before dying.
Life, a white napkin. But then dark, dangerous.
The taste of it.
A granite body with blood vessels,
Black meat and herbs.
Life as you live it. Carefully, leveling.
Taste life. It’s acorn water…
–Jarkko Laine
translated from the Finnish by SK
Poet, Essayist, Blogger, Journalist, Memoirist, Disability Rights Advocate, Public Speaker, Professor, Syracuse University
