Gottfried Benn’s ‘Little Aster’

By Scott Horton

A drowned driver of a beer truck was dumped onto the table

Someone had stuck a dark-pale lilac-colored aster

Between his teeth

I cut out the tongue and gums

With a long knife

Working from the chest outwards

Under the skin,

I must have touched it, because it slid

Into the brain right next to it.

I packed it into the chest cavity,

Between the wood shavings,

As it was being stitched up.

Drink up in your vase!

Rest sweetly,

Little Aster!

–Gottfried Benn, Kleine Aster in: Morgue und andere Gedichte (1912) (S.H. transl.)