Long Afternoons
Those were the long afternoons when poetry left Ille.
The river nowed p:nientiy , nudging lazy boats
to
sea.
Long afternoons , the coas t of ivory.
Shadows lounged in the streets, haughty Illanikins in shop fi-onts
stared at me with bold and hostile eyes.
Professors Ieft thei r schools wi th vacant faces,
as if the
lIiar!
had finally done them in.
Evening papers brought disturbing news,
but nothing happened, no one hurried.
There was no one in the windows, you weren ' t there;
even nuns seemed :lshallled of their lives.
Those were the long afternoons when poetry vanished
and I was left with the city's opaque demon,
like a poor traveler stranded outside the Care du Nord
with his bulging suitcase wrapped in twine
:lI1d
September's bhck raill fIlling.
Oh tell me how to cure myself of irony, the gaze
that sees but doesn't penetrate; tell me how to
CUlT
myself
of silence.
Translated from the Polish
by
Clare Cavanagh
MELANIE REHAK
Apostasy
Is it enough now, have I borne
the hoverings, the chronic roving
long enough' Have you recognized me
walking into the falling, watching the light leave'
And has the light gone past me, can I sleep'
Always the sky conIcs down alizarin and wide,
no moment of repose, all apogee.
