8 PM

Translated by Rawley Grau

The nightstand is full of forbidden things. I plunge my snotty nose deep into holy water; I touch the exhibited Heart. All mysteries are within my reach. The Angel of God, my Guardian Dear, keeps watch by my bed; he is perfectly beautiful and erect; no altar flowers, only a dull green wall with a mirror so at last I see his back —it’s true, he does have wings. Now he comes closer, but gets smaller and smaller, not bigger. Tiny and playful, he is sitting on your lips, which grow larger, with more and more sounds coming out of them, like pebbles gleaming in a mountain stream, gurgling sounds. The Angel of God, my Guardian Dear, now for the third time shows me his face. And I too am as small as can be, hiding in the folds of the sheets and giggling. I long to touch him, to have him beside me on my pillow. But there’s a narrow lane between us, from nose to mouth; I’ve traveled it often, up and down, but I don’t dare cross it. It belongs to you—not like a tree, which sinks its certainty deep in the ground, but like a cloud, which a lonely man watches through a window, and when his attention is absorbed by the excitement across the road, the wind scatters it through the heavens.