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House in Sweden, The

American Poetry Review, The, Mar/Apr 2008 by Nordbrandt, Henrik

I bought a house in Sweden. And never

have I done, felt or seen anything more absurd

or seen a more insane row of words on paper.

"I" to start with certainly does not belong here:

"I" could just as convincingly have been an apothecary

or a lynx made of asbestos

and "bought" sounds like the only word

that has unhappily survived

a long dead Siberian language:

And "house." I who never wanted to live on earth

and of all places in Sweden: Not on your life.

Therefore I bought the house

so the apothecary's crisp bells could be heard

in early spring far out in the darkening birch wood

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and the asbestos lynx could have a lake to mirror itself in.

I looked it right

in the eyes tonight as I prepared ray suicide.

There stands the house in these words

on the length of the lake, whose depth is clearly visible

through the black holes of the ice.

It is-a house. And because it is me

it is as red as blood but running nowhere.