you should never live
for others’ expectations
yours are hard enough

I’ll not write again
things a young man
thinks, not the words
of that feeling.

There is no world
except felt, no
one there but
must be here also.

If that time was
echoing, a vindication
apparent, if flesh
and bone coincided–

let the body be.
See faces float
over the horizon let
the day end.

I am through
Dragging it
All these years
At the tip of my feet.
About time
We live a little,
My shadow
At someplace,
I
Someplace else.

translated by Murat Nemet-Nejat

She was a force of nature, a short, dynamic, attention-seeking woman who charmed all who knew her. She would dance the tarantella in between serving courses at our family dinners, and sing off-key oblivious to criticism to Al Martino albums. She was a foot shorter than me but my long legs had to do double time to keep up with her when walking. And even though the weekly poker games at the dining room table were only for pennies, she took it so seriously that you would think they were playing for souls.
She actually played cards twice in my memory: Saturday nights with Uncle Joe (a cigar in his mouth, his green visor pulled down low on his forehead), Aunt Bernie (placid, accepting defeat before she even looks at her hand), her sister Mary (who fretted over each hand as if the mortgage depended on winning), Charlie (who was…

Whenever I eat,
I eat the pain of your love, mistress.
Whenever I get sleepy,
I dream of my love, my mistress.
Whenever I lie on my back in the house,
I lie on the pain of your love, mistress.
For whenever I walk about,
I step on the pain of your love, mistress.

translated by Frank Boas

I am not I.
I am this one
walking beside me whom I do not see,
whom at times I manage to visit,
and whom at other times I forget;
who remains calm and silent while I talk,
and forgives, gently, when I hate,
who walks where I am not,
who will remain standing when I die.

translated by Robert Bly