Seeing through the Ground

The white sun melts into the smog.

The light drips, working its way down

to my subterranean eyes that lie

deep under the city and gaze upward,

seeing the place from below: streets, foundations—

like aerial views of a wartime city,

but the reverse—a mole’s photograph:

silent rectangles in muted colors.

Where decisions are made. The bones of the dead

can’t be told from those of the living.

The sunlight intensifies and spreads, flooding

into aircraft cabins and peapods.

Translated from the Swedish