Everything Else Comes Naturally 

Ferenc Liebig 

I have made pubic hair grow out of the soil. 
The pubic hair is like a wild meadow. 
If you lie down on the soil, you press 
the pubic hair down like blades of grass. 
Sure, no one lies on the soil. 
Sure, the soil is still damp from the rain. 
Sure, the soil would soil the clothes. 
Sure, I could be a jungle. 

We drive to the cemetery. 
We are my grandmother and I. 
We visit my mother’s grave. 
We remove the covering, 
throw away needlecovered branches, 
pluck weeds, prune the little tree 
that was planted by the other grandmother, 
trim the hedge, free a plant from the leaves 
that stands near the grave, 
but does not belong to the grave. 
Let it be pretty, says my grandmother 
meaning that the gravesite is only pretty 
if it looks tidy around it too. 
We remove withered things, 
place the bowl of pansies we brought beside the gravestone, 
wipe with a damp cloth 
across the dull stone. 
The gold paint is barely visible anymore. 
The name can no longer be read. 
Only the birthdate. 1964. 

I spread like ivy, 
I grow like a kiwifruit into 
the thick swollen clouds. 
The wind blows the seeds of a poplar 
from the branches. It looks as though it is snowing. 
The sky is brilliantly blue. 
In the shade it is cool. 
I still have to go shopping later. 
I still have to disappear through a wall later, if it has gaps. 

Like with an analog camera, 
the images are rewound at the end of the roll, 
so they can be developed. 
Most are blurry, 
some are overexposed, 
in two of them a thumb 
covers a third of the picture, 
ten percent are pretty enough 
to be pasted into an album. 
That's what life feels like right now. 
Ten percent. That’s our time. 

I wish 
that in the landscape there were soil 
from which needs could grow. 
I wish 
there were a windmaker 
that moves the needs. 
Then I would say, 
I dry my hip after the exertion 
of unspeakable passion. 
Juicy flesh under a thick blanket 
transcription of various gestures. 
Gestures and words. 
Beside the stage hangs a curtain 
that can be drawn. 

Moss lines the trunks. 
Old branches lie on uneven ground. 
One must be careful not to step wrongly. 
If you step wrongly, you risk twisting something. 
One remembers the way back. 
Here twisting would be bad. 
One would have to be supported for several kilometers 
to be brought to the car. 
And in this heat. 
Every step creaks. 
One sweats under the armpits. 
One sweats between the legs. 
The underwear is damp. 
In the backpack are diced 
cucumber and pepper. 
Whether I can remember 
how we used to go collecting mushrooms in autumn. 
I cannot. 
Only of dead frogs on country roads. 
And bicycle rides to the lake. 
And sunburn. 
And the tick tweezers. 
And the bathing spot that was there only 
because we laid ourselves there, 
in the middle of the grass, until the grass 
would no longer stand. 

The wild growth. 
You pull your underwear down to your knees. 
You say you don’t want to be licked. 
But with fingers, you wink. 
I like the fuzz, 
how it hides 
your sex underneath. 
It smells intense. 
It smells good. 
You say you have to try things 
to know what you like. 
If you don’t try, 
how can you know what you like? 
I could also put something else in. 
Wink, wink. 

Grandmother leans 
on the walker. 
She is content. 
She already felt a guilt. 
What will the others think? 
Imagine what the others would have thought. 
She associates an unkempt grave 
with a bad person. 
Exhausted she asks for a break. 
During the break we watch a robin. 
Beautiful animals, says Grandmother  

and breathes in deeply. 

The body is made so adapted, 
made how one imagines it, 
but that is not how it is, the body 
is very different, much more wild, 
not so smooth, so modulated, 
so retouched, so filtered. 

Over the soil goes the wind 
as through a dense carpet 
of black hair. 
Between the hairs stands a poem. 
Through the wind one can see here and there 
fragments. 
It is a short poem. 
In the wardrobe hangs a dress. 
I have not tried it on for a long time. 
Now that I want to try it on, 
I’m afraid 
it might no longer fit. 
Bite me, I think, 
only what is supposed to bite me. 
Whose teeth are sharp enough 
so that it hurts in a good way. 
I stand next to the patch of soil. 
I have this text before me. 
I touch the hairs 
that grow out of the soil, 
I touch the hairs 
as if beneath the hairs 
there were not a poem, 
but something 
that is pleasurable. 

With age the hairs come 
suddenly and the hairs are suddenly 
long and suddenly in places 
where before there were none, 
a long hair on the upper arm, 
a single one on the chest, 
one beside a birthmark 
on the thigh. 
Remove hairs with tweezers. 
The tweezers help 
to restore the familiar state. 
Restore. 
Suddenly. 
Restore. 
Suddenly. 
Look at what we are becoming. 
Not what we were. 
Oh, dramatic element, 
knot your fingers like ropes. 

Truth belongs with leaving things out, 
that could be adverse to one’s own truth. 
Thus the father claims his mother 
would betray him, because the cancer diagnosis has 
thrown her off track. 
That his behaviour could be a reason 
appears to him no possibility. 
Father comes in the middle of the night 
into my room, he searches for 
answers and his search has led him 
into the room of his thirteenyearold son. 
He is desperate. 
Mother is in another apartment, 
with another man, the man 
drives a white BMW, 
the man has slickedback hair, 
the man sleeps with the mother, 
he sleeps with her, 
the mother sleeps with him, 
with the other man, 
he repeats the words, 
speaks of betrayal and trust, 
speaks about his efforts, speaks of treason. 
He says, Mother has lately 
been shaving her pubic hair. 
Apparently the new man cannot otherwise find the hole. 

Mountain. Valley. Mountain. 
Like a halfmade V. 
Like the suggestion 
of slightly parted thighs. 
Like the skis of a skijumper 
during his jump. 
Between the mountains 
it cracks and rustles. 
It is a forest and a river. 
It can be anything and nothing. 
It is everything and nothing. 
It is everything and nothing at the same time. 
Put yourself in the position of an athlete. 
Put yourself in the position of the athlete, 
as he stands under the shower after training. 
Give him summer freshness. 
Give him spring scent. 
On the shower gel it says: 
Carefree relaxation. 

There’s been a storm 
for days, 
immeasurable, 
what can be counted are 
snapped trees, 
torn-off roofs, 
the growing number of words 
to describe the destruction. 
A car lies upside down, 
another floats in the river, 
a few cars 
total five, 
were pushed into each other 
and block the sidewalk. 
Two of them are red. 
The others 
A: grey and black 
B: white and grey and black 
C: black or 
D: white and grey. 
In the news they talk 
of a storm of the century, 
the greatest disaster ever, 
then the power goes out and 
with the power the TVs 
and the radio and in the fridge 
the food rots faster 
than one can eat it. 
I tried to get the rubber boots 
from the basement, but the basement 
was already flooded and the water 
pushes upwards, the water is like 
a special task force, 
with the mission to secure every floor 
and the water smells foul 
and soon the water 
will knock at my door and ask, 
are you armed, for sure, 
that is what the water will ask. 

Tameness. Neglect. Confusion. 
Infatuation. Discord. Emotional recession. 
Complications. Rust. One foot after the other. 
The steps lead to the abyss. The abyss 
is in you, in you, you. Bend over the abyss, 
look into the abyss, look into your body, 
into the sonorous depth, the black roar, 
the transience, the bottomlessness, the weightlessness. 

On a billboard new blades 
by Gillette are advertised, for a more pleasant, 
precise, thorough, higherquality, 
more professional, more sustainable shave. 
For the best in a man. For the best on the face, 
under the arms, in the groin, one more step, 
so close to the abyss, 
so close to insignificance. 
Trimmed everything looks bigger. 
Horsetail by field edges. 
The climate between the legs, 
extremely wet and insatiable. 

Commonalities. Meeting spaces. Ease.  

Recollection. Transformation. The hollowing drop  

hits the stone, the stone hits the window, the window shatters,  

behind the window truth, truth and lie, lie, 
the stone is considered, the stone is polished, 
the stone has a soft spot. Moss. 
We touch the soft spot. Again and again. 
A copyright on your intimate hair. 
A copyright on you. A copyright 
for all your thoughts, that entwine 
and shoot upward, lack of oxygen 
makes dull knives draw. 
Shift in perspective: 
Push aside a few dreams. 
You need space. 
You need space for other things. 
You need affection. You need 
a summary of current needs. 
One forms oneself in a collage. 
You glue over snippets. 
You hide a poem 
under the artifacts of modern times. 
I look at pictures of old industrial sites, 
being reclaimed by nature. 
Trees grow out of roofs, plants from walls, 
the grass proliferates, nettles protect 
from unwelcome guests. 

Grandmother looks around once more, 
then we close the cemetery gate. 
That’s good, she says. Now everyone knows 
that my child is loved. 
On the way home she suppresses her tears. 
She wants to be strong, stay strong; in her age  

weakness means giving up and when you give up  

it afflicts the body like a disease. 

The windmaker stirs 
the new scenery. 
The windmaker is my fingers. 
The windmaker is tenfold. 
Caressing, scratching, pinching, crumbling. 
I touch myself, as you also touch me. 
I rummage through your wool, 
knit myself promises from it, 
pull the promises on me 
like a sweater. 
Cozy are the promises. 
Velvety as cashmere. 
The soil. 
In the soil vulnerability. 
In the soil the thought of, 
what if I am with you again, 
what if the wind-maker start. 

A quick shower. 
The water rushes. 

A shower brook. 

Worrying disquiet. 
With rosemary and oranges. 
A spray stream. 
With white clouds 
and permafrost. 
The water runs 
down the body. 
The water clings 
to the pubic hair. 
The water ripples. 

A knotcloth. 
The corona of a nipple. 

Fruity and vitalizing. 
With peach and without microplastic. 
We don’t want to call it shame. 
We don’t want to believe we’re ashamed. 
It grinds wildly. 
From inside out. 
From outside in. 
A river that flows from the hair 
into the drain. 
There in the drain, 
a dense tuft, 
with which we can 
put ourselves back together. 

Since her new naturalness, 
she’s finally had beautiful orgasms, 
not ones you have to forcefully coax out. 
Do I know the paintings of David Hockney, 
she asks, and says they feel like that, 
like the colors in his paintings, 
radiant, playful, shimmering. 
She had waited for years, 
always too busy 
lying the right way, casting the right shadows, 
showing the right shapes, being right, 
for the one who judges her. 
She turns on the ceiling fan. 
The stuffy air would summon wrinkles. 
And leave the TV off 
while I’m in the shower. 
I offer 
to take care of her new naturalness. 
That won’t be necessary, she calls from the bathroom. 
She would reject any opportunity 
that takes responsibility away from her.