The somnambulant Ear

By Hans Magnus Enzensberger
Translated by Peter Lach-Newinsky

How to ever get back to sleep
when in the deserted hour
before it gets light
the house knocks and scrapes,
when you can hear it murmuring
behind the wall?

Those shots, are they coming from a movie
nobody is watching
or is someone dying in the staircase?
Something is cooing where no pigeon lives,
something is groaning – an old wardrobe
or a long departed pair of lovers.

In the valves the gas is hissing.
Heavy furniture is being moved.
Something is dripping. Steam is ticking.
Water is rushing through the pipes.
Who is drinking, showering,
emptying their bladder? 

And when all is finally quiet –
the house holding its breath in fear –
you can make out a whirring,
almost beyond the borders of sound,
wraith-thin as the glittering disc
of an unstoppable meter

turning in the dark.