György Faludy
You Become More and More Waxen
You become more and more waxen, exhausted
when it is morning. When I comb your hair,
it breaks off.
Your arm is a withered vine.
The cocoons of cancer protrude from your neck.
Blue sky in front of your window.
The stone wall has no compassion.
Today you don't feel pain. I perch
by your bed and cradle a coffee mug.
In place of your hard breasts, green sutures,
purple scars. I'm lost in reverie.
You don't have to leave. May I be
next to you for another half-year?
Love, my 70-pound ghost,
what shall I say? I kneel in the light
because your pastel-gray eyes are still lovely.
Your wrecked body has life.
It is good this way.
And it will never get better.
(Translated from the Hungarian by Nicholas Kolumban)
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