The Child in the Baroque Room

The child in the baroque room
Shot itself
With father's pistol
Just before the News of Austria
Mother forbade it
To see her crying.
A Courths-Mahler soap opera
Was on TV at eight.

The eight-year-old child
In the large children's room
Full of antiques
And thoughts of a safe-and-sound world.
The grown-up girl
Suffocated
Thought only of marvelous aphorisms.

The child in the baroque room
So gentle and pure
Dreamt of Porsches
And knew exactly what was what.
Father mostly came
Home late
And worked on crossword puzzles.

The child in the baroque room
Shot itself
With pearls in its eyes
Sometime during Christmas Eve
Its smile looked
Photographed
Like a child's pose.

(Translated from German by Herbert Kuhner,
published in POETRYAUSTRALIA NO. 68, Oct. 1978)