Deborah Garfinkle 

Translator

You came back for my birthday
like the most beautiful gift
to celebrate the occasion
we got our hair cut

Grant us peace on Earth

I fed you on delicacies
it was the last Christmas
in November

Grant us peace on Earth

I’m watering your obituary
on a filthy table
a year without a diary. I recognize my self-tale
in the myriad autocorrections

Don’t abandon us

In Nordkapp’s barren wasteland
we collect bits of shells
pecked apart by the birds:
they grow like cranberries
on the stony meadow.

To caterwauling Libeň
the GPS brings
only stinking trash:
fragments from the ends of the Earth
aren’t good for export.

“If nature recharges you,
why do you feel so strange?”
your friends ask
as you return from a walk.
 
Water plunges onto a boulder
just the same; on the slopes
the discrete time of the valley
ripens with soil.

Yet an inspired poet,
a couple in love
or a killer from a nearby school
can emerge from a cave.

Thus, the unfathomable
remains unfaithful to itself
as if always caught
somewhat inflagranti.

When the chestnut burst where was I?
In a museum. With just a heavy bag
for my anchor; a naval carrier cruising the street.
 
Born here; died three meters below.
The Master’s chess set, eyeglasses, even worse:
the nasty old hag by the wall. Your neighbor.

Or on a trip; a nomad for a day.
The rain came rushing like a slim waitress.
The high peaks held up like dogma.

1984 to: I am a man of borders.
A city divided by two states.
What can and can’t be seen. A hooker
gives me the come on. Whether I really

don’t want anything. I don’t, even if
I think about it afterwards. I don’t want
to cross the border too easily. I was
afraid. There are certain limits.

One part is missing a heart and
is dying out. Nothing but casinos.
The term Hájek, as such, isn’t
explicit and has the following

meanings.