Maya Walker

Hedwig

“Anyhow, I have no social life, no distractions. I spend my evenings on the small balcony above the river…and I am not a good person. Years ago I wrote this poem…”
- Franz Kafka, in a letter to Hedwig Weiler

And in his poem he is empty like a letter with no words. He is not
concerned with people. He is only silent. In Třešť, silence is a language

of its own – a pause between words is a confession, an empty letter
is a declaration of grief. The river is always calm and he is always there–

thinking. He is not a good person, or so he says. He lives in silence
but his writing is so loud – He is not a good person, or so he tries to say

in a poem. Does writing poetry make him worse? Does writing
make him worse? No one lives in Třešť anymore – it is empty.

Every letter is an empty letter if you are not concerned with words.
Every person is a bad person if they cannot explain what it means

to be good. He writes to you formally and then never again. The river
thrashes and he is gone, and then Třešť is gone, or almost gone, and

every letter ends with yours no matter how formal they are. How cruel
it is to be in love in the margins. How temporary it is to love at all.