A vehicle takes shape,
unveils itself from the heat.

Skittish summer weather has alighted on Bavaria,
unloads an atmosphere that peels the moisture
from the pores of the street,
and pearls the body until the barrelling
of thunder calls the city to attention.

A Falstaffian regiment, we divert the gazes
of the well-oiled family occasions
on the central square —
ragged unseasonal visitors with little or
nothing to win or lose,
roaming without responsibilities into a virtual
summer adrift from consequences.

We are a private island.

Washed up in factory kitchens, in perfumed cafes,
adrift where almost everything
is lost in translation.

Conversations and instructions labor
into the light of day,
and disoriented words color the air
like incoherent ransom note cuttings.
Language is drowned out by distance
and indifference.

There is a trauma
to this simple obliviousness,
a visceral and inerasable
joy that cannot be traded in or cloned –
it sticks to the skin.