The ocean’s outside the window, but
The ocean’s inside Minna too.
Minna sits with the sea inside.
Minna ought to go for a walk, she knows.
Svaneke awaits outside and lovely.
People circle like good-natured sharks.
Minna should walk past them and out to a cliff, but
Minna’s deaf and listens.
Minna’s interior is a rehash of memories.
Minna paddles around in the old days.
Minna feels her body shifting.
Minna’s senses are returning.
Hands down through the sand.
Hands up toward the gulls.
Dad’s hand and Minna’s.
The blue delta of Dad’s hand.
The sea rises in Minna.
The sea finds fissures in Minna.
Minna’s leaky.
Minna opens her eyes and blinks.
The sea trickles slowly.
The sea reaches land.
The beads of gravel rattle.
Minna blows her nose.
Minna should find herself a cliff.
Minna and Bergman should walk out onto the cliff and sit.
Minna shouldn’t do anything else.
Minna feels like Gunvor’s peeping in the window.
The geraniums block the inward view.
Bornholm’s relatively large.
The likelihood’s small, but
Minna peeks out from behind a plant.
Svaneke Harbor rocks with boats.
The tourists balance glass plates.
The tourists turn the corner in sensible shoes.
The tourists position themselves willingly in line.
The cliffs are out there.
The cliffs are warm from the day’s sun.
Minna runs a hand across her face.
Minna opens her backpack.
Bergman’s lying down there.
Dread makes the dreaded real, he repeats.
Minna nods.
Minna closes her eyes.
Minna whispers out into the lodgings: Now the dog howls no more.
The dog’s done with playing forsaken.
The dog’s shut its mouth.
The dog lies in its basket.
The dog begs for its ball.
The dog has nothing more to say about its situation.
Minna removes the earplug on the right side.
Minna listens with her head cocked.
The dog howls.
The dog howls skyward.
Minna’s crawled out as far as she can go.
Minna sits on the blanket she brought.
The granite drills up gently into her buttock.
The gulls have set up camp on a couple cliffs farther out.
Christiansø is a seed on the horizon.
Christiansø beckons with its outpost nature.
Minna doesn’t want to be any farther out now.
Minna just wants to sit here.
Minna wants to drink her coffee with Bergman.
The waves smack gently against the cliff.
The world smells of seaweed.
Minna sits and is doing fine.
Minna comes to think of Vagn.
Minna took a first-aid course of Vagn’s.
Minna’s never rescued anyone, but
Vagn knew all about hurt people.
Vagn said, Hold their hand!
Vagn said, Bodily contact helps the injured!
Vagn said, Caresses and calm speech’ll pass the time.
The ambulance’ll get there sooner or later.
A human being could use another human in the meantime.
A small hand is enough!
Minna looks around her circle of acquaintances.
The circle of acquaintances can’t get a hand through the shield.
The circle of acquaintances can’t get skin on skin.
Minna considers her hand.
Minna doesn’t need to play pious.
Minna’s hand has withdrawn from the struggle.
Minna’s hand hasn’t touched anyone since Lars.
Lars was so real under the duvet.
Lars was so gentle down there.
Lars dared in the dark, but
The light demands trend awareness.
Minna’s not trendy.
Minna’s soft and warm every day.
The everyday doesn’t cut it.
Minna takes her hand from the sea and sticks it in her mouth.
The sea tastes good.
The lighthouse towers behind her.
Årsdale nestles to the south.
Christiansø is Denmark’s remotest enclave.
This rock’s a rehearsal space, thinks Minna.
The gulls are the only ones present.
Minna can make noise the way she wishes.
Minna feels something slipping far below.
Minna’s belly grows in capacity.
The lungs become bellows.
The throat a swan’s.
The voice full of rust.
Minna’s needed rehearsal space, but
Bornholm’s big.
Bornholm has no objection if Minna warbles a trill.
The song has light, Minna sings.
Minna doesn’t know where it’s coming from, but it persists.
The song has warmth, she sings.
Minna recalls the folk high school now.
The song has eternity.
Minna thinks it’s a strange song.
Minna sings the song anyway.
Minna’s voice rises plumb upward.
The voice is like a beanpole.
Minna can climb it.
Minna can reach the stars.
Minna can reach the giant, the golden eggs, the empyrean.
Minna’s good at climbing, but then she dives.
It does the voice good to plunge headlong.
The voice breaks the surface of the sea.
The voice continues toward the bottom.
The sea grass sways and tickles.
The marine fauna stands still and listens.
The voice is alone with itself and the wet.
Minna closes her eyes and she sings,
The song unites as it fades.
That’s not enough for Minna.
Minna gives the song a last burst.
Minna’s heart lifts.
The gulls rise.
The wings flutter.
The wings applaud and applaud.
Minna opens her eyes, and there stands an angler.
The angler stands on the rock ten yards away.
The angler looks at Minna.
The angler creaks in his rubber boots.
The angler calls out,
The fish are getting spooked.
Minna blushes: I thought I was alone.
A kayaker instantly paddles past.
Another kayaker, and yet another.
The kayakers paddle past like geese in a village pond.
The angler points somewhere behind Minna.
Minna turns around.
The evening sun is blinding, but there sit a man and a woman.
The man and woman wave with their cigarettes.
The woman says it sounded lovely.
Minna repeats that she thought she was alone.
The woman and the man often sit by the lighthouse in the evening.
The view of Christiansø, says the man.
The view of the bathers, says the woman.
The woman points at a springboard a little ways off.
People are leaping from the springboard down among the cliffs.
Campground tents sprout up among the brush.
Minna doesn’t want to know anything else, but
The couple’s from Østerbro in Copenhagen.
The couple could stay on Bornholm forever.
The woman pinches the man on the thigh.
The man pinches the woman on the thigh.
The man has large lips.
The woman isn’t wearing a bra.
Minna wishes it weren’t embarrassing to leave.