Tom Veber (born 1995 in Maribor) is an artist who works at the junction of theatre, music, visual arts, and literature. His poems have been published in Croatia, Hungary, Greece, France, Austria, Germany, Russia, and China. He has published two collections – The Breaking Point published in 2019 by Literarna Družba Maribor publishing house, and in Up to Here Reaches the Forest, published last year by ŠKUC – Lambda.
***
Your skin has a scent
of New York in the fall
when low clouds descend
over the narrow city streets
and you try to answer all questions
affirmatively
since you suspect the departure within yourself
and departures are always softer
in flocks of white lies
your eyelashes remind me
of narrow birch tips in Québec
in that park
where you held my hand for the first time
in that moment
I could assert with certainty
that my knees
melted into clouds
like in some Renoir painting
your protruding collarbones
paint the picture of the sharp Moher cliffs
of Western Irish shores
do you remember how whale backs
reflected the light
at sunset
like live mirrors
how the salty wind
stroked our flushed cheeks
how we laid down in the grass
and for hours stared
at each other
at the soft sky.
~
***
I am leaning against the window sill
my gaze is meandering around the city
I see some movements
some strokes into loneliness
I alternately sip green tea with rice milk
and smoke your cigarettes
I wait standing wide
I am greedily shrinking up
I am puffed up like a cat
before an attack
I shiver with everything
that can break
in a matter of seconds
I wait for you
continuously louder
you observe me
in ambush
your eyes scrape
across my heated body
you aim
you press
you shoot.