for who can resist - fly or man-
the sticky nectars orgy of colors glowing with hues
of white of violet of meat like the windows of a red tavern
where a kind inn-keeper with a beautiful daughter wife
sends the company of drunken guests drained of blood
to heaven or hell depending on their merits
it was a favorite of the Victorian decadents
combining the salon of debauchery with the torture chamber
everything was there - rope nails venom sex the knout the
coffin
and we live peacefully with the pitcher plant
among gulags concentration camps with no concern for
the knowledge
that innocence in the world of plants - does not exist
Translated from the Polish by Bogdana and John Carpenter
Abraham Sutzkevor
THE KISS
The Wonder happened so naturally:
a poet submerged in a sea - seeking
pearls , shivering and yearning motionlessly .
And with the slightest kiss for the first pearl,
his limbs disappeared,
his face ceased to exist-
no tears-
the poet entered his poems.
Translated from the Yiddish by Murray Wolfe
