Reading celan in a hot Month

In the after-camp, you
sorted word-shards,

cracked open, line
by line the opaque day,

its cruelties and splintered grace.
We follow behind in our

before-times, dazed, adrift
on ground that shifts and ignites

while a child chases a ball
across a pitch. Awake,

we watch the earth enter
a dream-state, as when

sleep insinuates itself
into our certainties as books

shimmy from shelves and we
live on, speaking still.