Forget the interim, it is auger
and lager, oaked fervor halting mid-air
at the morning whistle.

Late, the professor ran the train
to the hall’s bell top,
hoping to stall those whose shells

blacken with boarding, impervious
to the sink’s salve. Stop digging captions,
loosen the tambourine, stand down.

Late, the professor’s daughter volleys
her wares. It’s hard to know why,
then someone divines the garden’s larva.

And then someone asks her, are you on fire?
And then someone hot-steps the garden’s lava.
Her reign over fall slackens first,

then, falling farther over orchids,
aubades and lovers falter—and daughter,
is the dawn railing, or ringing?

                        Homophonic translation of Werner Aspenström’s “Du och Jag och Världen”