by Dorthe Nors
Minna has a hard time getting up from the quay.
Minna feels like a horse.
Minna says, I think it was Bugs Bunny.
Jette goes through the door into the Royal Library.
Minna stands there like a fly in the ointment, and then she has to pee.
Minna has to really pee, and it has to happen fast.
Minna has to go to the john twice a day on average when she works at the Royal Library.
Minna pees.
Minna fills her water bottle from the tap.
Minna leaves the john.
Minna’s surrounded by a couple hundred police officers in mufti.
The officers are with the Danish National Police.
The officers stand at attention in the buffet area.
The officers are at a conference in the Karen Blixen Meeting Room.
Minna watches the deputy commissioner eat a fish roll.
Minna slopes through the crowd.
Minna is a relic.
Minna spools up across two hundred officers.
Minna towers over four hundred sperm-filled sacs.
The officers’ laughter bursts through the room.
Jens Peter Jacobsen shudders.
Hans Christian Andersen ditto.
Yard upon yard of shelving turns its back.
Minna writes tonal rows.
Minna sweats.
Minna works like a horse.
Minna heaves the tones around on the paper.
Minna clears her throat.
Minna clears her throat a little more.
The girl to her left shushes her.
Minna packs up and rides downstairs.
Minna enters the revolving doors from one side.
A police officer enters from the other.
Minna revolves around with the officer.
Minna is walking and going round.
The revolving door mechanism feels defective.
The officer gets his foot caught.
The revolving door stops heavily.
The revolving door spits Minna out like a clay pigeon.
Iceland Wharf lies far beneath Minna.
Iceland Wharf shines flat and practical.
Minna sees far beneath her the mermaid on the quay.
Minna looks out across the city.
Minna floats.
Minna’s in flight over Copenhagen.
Minna’s an instance of female buoyancy and helium.
Lars is as silent as the grave, but
Karin’s answered quickly.
Minna’s seated herself in her kitchen at home.
Minna doesn’t dare open the email from Karin.
Karin plays accordion.
Minna and Karin took a class together.
Karin latched onto Minna.
Minna is somewhat of a host species.
Minna has now finally told Karin to stop.
The decision’s good enough.
The decision was just made too late.
Karin feels bad now.
Karin’s self-worth has been damaged.
Karin’s self-worth is Jutlandic.
Karin brags about motocross, sex, and pork sausage.
Karin’s married to a farmer.
The farmer’s bought up the parish.
The parish belongs to Karin.
Karin drinks tall boys.
Karin plays folk dances.
Karin’s on the gym board.
Karin sticks her hand all the way up her neighbor.
Karin grasps the inner udder.
Karin milks.
Karin pinches and squeezes.
The teat yields.
The teat’s tugged long and white.
The teat grows tender and stiff.
The teat grows so tired in the end.
Minna also wrote her, Now relax, but
Karin doesn’t need to restrain herself:
Karin goes to zumba.
Minna was right to break up with her.
A person ought to defend herself.
Minna opens the email from Karin.
Minna’s right.
Karin writes nasty things about Minna.
Minna can’t for example land a man.
Men don’t want women like Minna.
Age will drag you down!!! Karin writes.
Barrenness will haunt you!!! Karin writes, and continues:
Minna doesn’t know how to live.
Minna only knows how to think.
Karin’s got everything that Minna wants.
Karin’s got a dog, a man, and kids.
Karin’s got five hundred acres of land.
Minna’s got zilch.
Minna’s lonely, a failure, and deserves to be pissed on.
Karin pisses.
Minna thinks that should suffice.
People are getting worse and worse.
Middle fingers poke out of car windows.
Small dogs shit before her entry.
Young men shout whore.
The three Billy Goats Gruff play havoc in nice folks’ sunrooms.
People’s faces look kind.
People’s faces aren’t kind.
Minna wants to reply.
Minna wants to write nasty things too, but
Minna thinks enough’s enough.
Minna longs for shut traps.
Minna longs for stillness and beauty.
Minna seats herself by the window.
Minna looks down on the street.
Minna watches a small dog gently squeeze out a turd up onto the curbstone.
Night has descended on Amager.
Denmark is laid in darkness.
The Sound flows softly.
The planes take off and land.
Minna awakens.
Minna gasps.
Lars was in the dream.
Minna and Lars were at the beach.
Minna was buried with just her head free.
The sea was rough at the foot of the dune.
The sea raged, foaming white.
Dad stood in the breakers and waved.
Minna wanted to grab Lars in her haste.
Minna wriggled her arms.
The arms wouldn’t budge.
Lars pelted her with sand.
Lars patted her hard with a shovel.
Lars poured water over her.
Lars used her to build a sand castle.
The wave reached land.
The wave reached land and trickled slowly.
The beads of gravel rattled.
Dad vanished.
Minna awoke.
Minna turned on the light and now it is quiet.
Amager steams with rain.
The rain refracts off the manholes.
Minna never bakes cake.
Minna gets up to bake a cake.
Minna bakes a cake in the middle of the night.
Cake is the opiate of the people.
Jette sits on the quay and is intimate.
Minna’s brought cake for coffee.
Minna unwraps the tinfoil from a piece of cake.
The tinfoil feels childish.
The cake isn’t very good either.
Jette’s been to a seminar.
Jette has a new lover.
The lover’s Russian.
The Russian’s as hot as fresh borscht.
The Russian’s French is good.
Jette’s got Reds in her pleasure pavilion, thinks Minna.
Minna looks at the mermaid on the quay.
The mermaid is green.
The mermaid cannot swim.
The mermaid would sink to the bottom immediately.
Minna says, Such sun!
Jette says, What about you?
Minna says, I’m working on the paper sonata.
Minna knows perfectly well that Jette means sex.
Minna knows perfectly well that Jette wants to trade moisture.
Minna knows perfectly well that Jette’s leading on points.
Karin
too.
Minna understands completely.
It’s something to do with physics.
It’s also something to do with the soul.
Minna can’t explain it.
Minna bloody won’t explain it either.
Minna looks at the mermaid.
The mermaid’s tail fin is cast in bronze.
The mermaid’s tail fin can’t slap.
The world is a suit of clothes.
The clothes too tight.
The corneas drying out.
Minna stretches: Work calls.
Jette says, Leaving already?
Minna is.
Minna disappears up to the reading room.
Minna stares at her in-box.
Everyone writes and no one answers, thinks Minna.
Elisabeth’s written.
Elisabeth will treat her to a cup of tea.
Elisabeth is Minna’s big sister.
Karin, Elisabeth, and Jette, thinks Minna.
Women in their prime.
Women with the right to vote.
Women with educations.
Women with their own needs.
Women with herb gardens and the pill.
Steamrollers, thinks Minna.
One mustn’t think like that.
Women are awful to women, Minna’s mother always said.
Mom’s right, but
Women are tough to swallow.
Minna doesn’t understand why men like women.
Women want to cross the finish line first.
Women want to look good on the podium.
Women are in the running, but
Minna’s from another world.
Minna’s a composer.
Minna’s not a mother.
Minna doesn’t have a mothers’ group.
Minna sees the mothers’ group often.
The mothers’ group takes walks in Amager.
The mothers’ group drives in formation.
The mothers’ group is scared of getting fat.
The mothers’ group goes jogging with their baby buggies.
The mothers’ group eats cake at the café.
The mothers’ group contends gently for the view.
The baby buggies pad the façade.
The baby buggies form a breastwork.
Minna fears the mothers’ group.
Minna cannot say that out loud.
Minna has no child.
Minna can’t let herself say anything.
Minna’s not home free.
Minna once won a prize for some chamber music.
Minna would rather have gotten a license to live.
Minna has lain down on the couch.
Minna looks forward:
The prospect’s hazy.
Minna looks backward:
Time has passed.
Minna recalls the Bay of Aarhus.
Minna recalls Dad:
Dad and Minna hike through Marselisborg Forest.
Dad and Minna hike down to Ballehage Beach.
Dad and Minna sniff the anemones.
Dad and Minna change into their bathing suits.
Dad and Minna position themselves on the pier.
Dad and Minna inhale the salt.
The wind’s taken hold of Dad’s hair.
The wind whips around Minna’s ditto.
Dad and Minna stand with their arms extended.
Dad’s armpits hairy.
Minna’s bathing suit with balloon effect.
Dad’s finger toward the horizon: Helgenæs!
Minna takes a running jump.
Minna shoots out into the bay.
Dad’s a water bomb.
Dad and Minna dive.
Dad and Minna splash each other.
Dad and Minna can do anything, but
Minna grew up.
Minna had to bathe alone.
Minna hiked through Marselisborg Forest.
Minna wanted to hike down to Ballehage, but
Minna met a roe deer.
The deer stood on a bluff.
The deer stood stock-still and stared at Minna.
Minna stood stock-still and stared at the deer.
The deer was a creature of the deep forest.
The deer was mild and moist of gaze.
Minna was mild and moist of gaze.
The deer’s legs like stalks.
The deer’s fur in the sun.
Minna’s hair in the wind.
The forest was empty when the deer departed.
Minna looked across the bay.
Minna inhaled the salt.
Minna gazed at the pier.
Minna picked mushrooms from half-rotted stumps.
Minna threw her arms around a beech tree.
Love ought to reassert itself.
Loss ought to do something, but
Loss and love are connected, Minna thinks.
Minna lies in Amager.
Minna turns on her side.
Love presupposes loss.
Minna deeply misses Lars.
The pain’s connected to hope.
Hope is light green.
Hope is a roe deer on a bluff.
Someone has got to love, thinks Minna.
Someone’s got to fight.
Minna’s got a lot to fight.
Lars has deleted her.
Minna is no longer friends with Lars.
Lars has spoken.
Minna’s been expunged.
Lars has disappeared from her wall, but
Minna can see Lars everywhere.
Lars hangs out with the others.
Lars invites people for beer.
That’s awful enough.
This is worse:
Lars comments on everything Linda Lund says.
Linda Lund also attended the conservatory.
Minna was good at piano.
Linda was good at guitar, but
Linda’s better suited to the music industry.
Minna can screw a reporter without getting her picture in the paper.
Linda Lund just has to cross the street.
Linda’s sex appeal is undeniable.
Minna can feel Linda’s sex in everything.
Sex is power.
Sex is currency.
Linda is loaded.
The world’s a stage.
The stage is Linda’s.
No one may block the view of Linda.
Minna knows that.
Minna and Linda run into each other now and then.
Minna still has scars from the last time.
Minna stood there with her score.
Minna was making for the stage.
Minna was supposed to perform just like the others, but
Minna ran into Linda in the wings.
Linda pulled out a mental machete.
Linda slashed a couple times.
Linda said, That dress will blend into the curtain.
Linda said, What’s your name again?
Minna almost couldn’t perform afterward.
Lars is in for it.
Lars congratulates Linda on her birthday.
Linda replies, Thanks for last night, kiss kiss.
Lars writes, Nice!
Linda says, It certainly was.
Lars says, Rock on, babe!
Linda’s a cannonball in jacket and skirt.
Lars is a hypnotized reporter.
Minna sits and gasps.
Karin sits on the grill of her 4x4.
Karin sits and smiles on her 4x4.
Minna unfriends vehicle and Karin both.
Minna unfriends Linda Lund too.
Minna doesn’t want to be an unwilling witness!
Minna doesn’t want her nose rubbed in the piss.
Minna unfriends another two people.
Minna unfriends more.
Minna unfriends Britta.
Britta’s an old schoolmate.
Britta’s written,
Britta’s put the pork l
oin on the Weber.
Minna can no longer leave well enough alone, but
The unfriendings provide no relief.
Minna’s been unfriended herself.
The pain of being unfriended is unbearable.
Minna misses Lars.
Lars has inflicted a trauma.
Minna’s in love with someone who’s traumatized her.
Minna figures that makes her a masochist.
Minna doesn’t want to be a masochist.
Minna wants to be a human being, but
Minna’s expunged.
It hurts so much, Minna whispers.
Minna goes in the shower.
Minna lets the water run, and then she stands there:
Minna with her lips turned toward the tiles.
Minna with blood on her hands.
Minna with soap in her eyes.
Minna with no roe deer.
The ringmaster of a flea circus lets the artists suck his blood.
Bergman strokes Minna on the cheek.
A daydreamer isn’t an artist anywhere but in his dreams.
Bergman reaches for the buttermilk.
Bergman has indigestion.
Minna has a burnt taste in her mouth.
Bergman whispers, I contain too much humanity.
The days are long, large, light.
They’re as substantial as cows, as some sort of bloody big animal.
Minna snuggles up to Bergman.
Dad strokes Minna’s cheek.
Dad settles himself on his rock.
Dad understands.
Dad isn’t scared.
Minna’s read Bergman for a couple days.
Minna’s tired of lying in bed.
Minna checks her email.
Minna’s gotten a lot of email.
Mom and Jette have written.
Elisabeth’s written, and look here:
Karin’s written.
That was expected.
Minna doesn’t know if she’ll read Karin’s missive.
The street clatters with bikes and cars.
The sun’s risen over Amager Strandpark.
Baresso’s opened.
The coffees to go are warming palms.
The coffees to go are out walking.
The cell phones, the blankies, the coffees to go.
People trickle toward City Hall Square.
People resemble shoals of shiny herring.
People press on with sand and sleep in their eyes.
Minna eats a cracker.
Karin’s missive awaits.
Karin wants to be nasty.
Karin wants to upset her applecart, but
Minna’s cart has no apples.
The damage has been done.
Lars has disappeared.
Linda’s getting laid.
Karin has a dog.
Karin takes walks with her dog on the beach.
The dog’ll fetch a stick for Karin.
