Death in the Afternoon

    Translated by David Ignatow

    Of the hundreds of deaths that inhabit me，

    this one today bleeds the least.

    It's the death that comes with the afternoons，

    when the pale shadows grow longer，

    and contours collapse¹

    and the  mountains show themselves.

    Then someone passes hawking²

    his merchandise under my window，

    where I lean out to see

    those streetlamps that are still unlit.

    Shadows cross the ashes of the streets

    without leaving tracks， men that pass

    who do not come to me and do not stay

    with their lonely soul on their backs.

    The daylight escapes toward the west.

    The night air comes in before time，

    and a bitter， confused fear， almost

    pain， hardly hope， reaches me.

    Everything that tied me to life

    becomes untied³， becomes distance，

    goes farther off， disappears at last，

    and I'm a dead man，

    ……and no one raises me.