Ryszard Krynicki
THIRTY-YEAR WOMAN

(fragment)

Nothing will surprise me
My child, an old man
My child putting hand under my mini-skirt
An old man touching me up in disease
My child, a man
My child asking me, whether it came out from my belly by my mouth
A man, offering me a mutual death
As the most certain way of avoiding unwanted pregnancy
My somebody else's husband
My husband coming back from a distant town, infected by the journey
His friend attempting to rape me on the marital couch
Love, disappointment
Completeness, incompleteness
Completeness, that I can not imagine
Emptiness, that I can not fill in with anything
My lifeless heart
I am a better or worse meat
Giving birth to another meat
Which in any moment, as soon as it learns to talk
May say, that it didn't ask for it
And would prefer to be a flower
My annihilation comes true continuously
Since then I seek my friends among the dead only
Inside me
And among the forgotten



Travestation: Marcin Herich
Translation: Jacek Katański