Esther Jansma

Potatology

Translated from the Dutch by Arno Bohlmeijer

It was late and the topic was “truth,”
The core is found in the smallest, most common,
someone said, a potato has gravity too,

the major thing I’ve done in my life so far
was not shouting but waving, hi, goodbye, to all
that vanished and began, the dead, children, everything

does change, after all, thermodynamics have it
that chaos is standard, everything moves
eternally from perfect to broken forever,

from this the presence of time is derived, hence
this waving of mine, of us—correction,
“so far” is nonsense, the past does not exist,

“before” is a thought, creation, a purchase,
so I did nothing brave, just a moment ago
I groped in the darkness of the chest that’s my head

for the alleged, perpetual ease
of potatoes bought today, and I had some thoughts
I’d never had before about exactly that.