Beste hizkuntzetako lanen zerrenda

 

  Translation: Paddy Bushe

 

 

October Night, 1977

 

An October night and my father and mother in their bedroom,

when as yet they are not

father and mother to anyone.

 

The man takes off his shirt:

he hangs it on the chair before the mirror, a headless man.

The woman puts her trousers and shirt in the wardrobe:

one more hanged woman suspended on a rack.

 

Neither of them looks in the mirror on the chest-of-drawers.

They slip between the sheets

each on their own side:

the two sides of the frontier, of customs.

 

The woman imagines

the damp spot on the wall painted.

Her feet are cold. She takes shelter

around the man's belly, her breath warm.

 

Lights out, the sheets are not white;

bodies are, they seem cleaner.

The woman would choose daylight.

The man would choose night.

 

On that October night

when as yet they are not

father and mother to anyone,

in the desire by decree of the marriage-bed

they are waiting for sleep

each one secluding the other.

 

 

 

© Leire Bilbao
© translation: Paddy Bushe


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