The girl takes the / umbrella or / does the umbrella take / the girl / lead her out into the wet / evening and / touch her softly on the hand

US poet Francesca Bell recently interviewed German poet Max Sessner for B O D Y about his work, some of his thoughts on poetry and his upcoming book of poems, Das Wasser von Gestern.

Five years into your child’s illness, / when you can no longer conceive of life / without its dank presence, you see / a blanched sky bearing a trace of rose / and the moon, risen huge—

On Linkedin, I see you soldiered some again, / and I imagine you running in the Iraq desert dusk. / When we were young, you sent a tiny, Korean flower / from your base, pressed between two slips of paper you left blank...

I peer into the little darkness / her flesh holds, // thinking how a person can’t stop herself

Each month comes the reminder / of the gash God made in me. / I like to think He made it / with one finger, the way an artist / will reach right into a painting / and finish it off.