László Lator
Poems
Translated by David Hill

[...]

There in the clinic

A klinikán még egyszer

There in the clinic i was forced to see
how much you’d changed in only a few days
how your stripped bosom rose then sank again
thirstily gulping air through a machine
and as i slowly stroked your bruised and withered
forearm beyond my pain and irritation
beyond the wall of your complete oblivion
somewhere i still could sense that youthful maiden
and with an awful passion i desired you

Perhaps within you something still remained
a soul or something like that what do i know
because although the blood had left your skull
your stubborn cheated heart had not yet failed
and on the bleeping monitor it traced
a living zigzag i might say a pulse
why stay alive to tread that jagged line though
the road was closed to me it seemed a blind road
Of course the way you walked i’d noticed long since
was getting how it must get getting oldish
and this detail or that was coming loose
and yet i still loved your still-lovely wholeness
beautiful blameless even well past youth
whatever could whatever still can happen
and in the way you felt and smelt and tasted
your figure never to be imitated
i knew there still remained some nest of passion
unreachable in which your sweet wild juice
did not decay and when i saw you naked
there in the clinic ravenous desire
stirred up my body with that same old call
to intercourse’s inexplicable
rapture that in the details is entire

[...]

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László Lator has been writing and publishing poetry since 1947. His collected poems appeared in 1997. He has also translated many German, French, Italian, Russian and other poets.

David Hill’s first collection, Angels and Astronauts, was published earlier this year by the National Poetry Foundation (U.K.).