Berlin - Mitte

I live in a haunted house.
I have lost my hunger. I have lost my sleep.
When I sleep, my dreams are not mine.

My sense of time is unstable
and I wait for anonymous
midnight visits. I feel that all
that is to come is inevitable.

I have my suitcase close by, but it's empty -
I know I'll be surprised. I'm ready
to leave my possessions behind.
I look for clues around the house.

But the walls are white-washed.
The ceilings are too high.
The floor has been treated with the polish
of this new, confident century.

I sit by the narrow window remembering
those I never knew,
for there is no-one to remember them.
No-one remembers numbers on a plaque.

I fear they will come one night,
after sixty years of absence.
I will offer them the house of course, the bed,
the kitchen table, but I fear they will say
that what was taken from them
can never be given back.