The picket fence

by Per Kirkeby

We are all temporary dots in the great milky way
Stars that blaze violently before they go out and
the nothingness stretches further into space
If only there had been a picket fence

Picket fence
As a child I clung to the mattress by my last
fingernail when it struck me that there were no
limits out there in space
that it just went on and on.
There must be a picket fence somewhere
but what came after that picket fence
another? and another? It went from bad to worse.
(Perhaps that's why at one time in my life I painted many metres of picket fence.)

translated from Danish by David McDuff