Eugen Jebeleanu (Drawing by Jesper Deleuran) |
Night
by Eugen Jebeleanu,
from Secret Weapon
(tr. Matthew Zapruder and Radu Ioanid)
At night, lying in bed
on the narrow sheet, the sheet
riddled with senile wrinkles,
when my bones, my independent bones, are hurting me,
when I listen to the breathtaking songs of clang clang,
when I dream what cannot be,
when I memorize vaguely what was,
when I can no longer build
a coop for some problematic stars,
when what the Big Ones are preparing for us
over the ocean or in other places
no longer interest me,
when I can neither sleep
nor stay awake,
then
close to me
with large disgusting steps
with a body like a bored harpy
comes Lele,
great Lele,
Lele of Boredom,
Lele who without malice gives me
a slap on my ashen lips,
smothers my head in the rotten cabbage of the pillow,
and whistles bored through teeth that reach up to her ears,
“You have died enough. Now go on.”
And I wake up tomorrow
in the lulling arms
of life.