egy lélekcsel, egy testcsel

The Tepid Heart, but Let’s Not Repeat It

The plaid shirt you left forgotten
on the garden bench. Such is time gone past.
In the house you so love your mother
always gets the first word. How long
the backroom’s watched over this head.
Blabbing’s absurd. I waited up for you,
and left to myself like all those times before,
I slipped my hand up your blouse.

Pristine July. The sun comes out
and stays that way through the afternoon.
The grass dries, the puny seed
soaks into the earth. By nightfall even
the last fence becomes clear. You hit
the roof, what d’you mean, pristine,
the dark is nothing but the dark.

With the dead I’m somehow
more steadfast. I say two years,
then we sell the house. The gate, the rusty
bars are what I remember. A heart is
that which hates or might just not,
yet still never gives an inch. You can
roam through life’s blurry halls.
I make coffee without a thought for you.

So long there’s a time-table and there are trains.
At the dirt road’s end the station’s stood
nearly fifty years. I walk to the store, where
the gal’s still called the gal, and I’m still friends
with her daughter. Then back to the waiting room,
back to the scoured stone benches. On our street
an ancient mine gapes, summer passes.

Let it be Sunday, let it be morning. May
the house rouse ’round eight. May everything
follow in drowsy, delayed order,
may two bodies obey a never-known habit.
A light wind, autumn garden, whatever’s in it edible,
just let this all be. And let’s talk till noon,
as if a guest were jotting down, taking note
of every word. Let’s consistently say this carcass
is the past, and in front of life may this regularly appear:
fucking. Let’s lie about character, cities, roles,
but the names, for God’s sake, let’s not repeat.

Translated by: Maya J. LoBello