When I first met someone by the name of Willem
It was many and many years ago
Lost in my thoughts, near the lake.
Lean or better yet thin
Entity, as I used to call him,
Mien of wooden spider on its green cobweb.
When I met the man again at the same place
I was struck with mal de mer and I
Lost myself in the ocean – not a lake!
Lively and no longer limp, he lunged at me.
Once a man but now a tree
With slender branches that once saved a child.
