Ingeborg Bachmann

What drove Ingeborg Bachmann’s writing, she once told an interviewer, was an  

Harlem

The clouds unbuckle the wooden beams
as rain seeps through the shafts and drains.
It ricochets down fire escapes
and strums a box of music.

The ebony city rolls her ivory eyes.
She turns a corner and flees the world.
The rhythm of rain infiltrates the silence.
The rain-blues are all left behind.

                            Translated from German by Paul Weinfield