Petr Král: Into the Night

It’s too late, and it’s no good flashing your eye and driving your belly
in the tango between the stiffening limbs of the one that is backing off with you
out of time; it’s no good neatly parting your mop and starting to rant
from the balcony over the leavings of sunlight in the bay.
It’s too late, the grinning gob that is gaping into the night
can’t hide the bottomless pit.

Of time to live
there was plenty, the whole afternoon, when the wind raised the tablecloth
on the terrace
and taught it oblivion.
when a faint gleam cut through the grey of the river embankment
to the white of nowhere,
and the counted seed lurked in the dark of the shop while out on the street an unknown goddess
passed on her bike.
All the time to live in the fleeting ripple of the world
without weight, while you yet were sleeping.


(1990)

Translated by James Naughton

Photo © Rossano B.Maniscalchi