Sun, 19 Oct 1997

Hiroshima, mon Amour

It was as if you cleansed me

in the susurrant cloud

of your sauna.

"Yes,

now do it,

now kneel,

now, now..."

And are you aware

I planted

my longing

in the pining of your flesh?

Probably not.

But a musky fragrance

and the night, a leprous red

spread stealthily

through gasps and drops of sweat

And the wind died.

After which we traded tales

And I don't know why, but you talked of Hiroshima

"Listen to me - I was born December 26, 1965.

Offspring

of the remnants of power

what remained

in the rubble of a bank floor

after the bomb

exploded midair."

Are you from heaven?

"I am from the north."

Only now I know that we were happy.

You thought it was Friday

I seemed to remember Saturday.

Regardless, the seconds didn't tick

The clock did not complain.

What I heard was the sound

of falling clothes

popping buttons

and a mirror as it was opened, my God.

The air,

the feeling,

the magma,

and your smile revealing

who was to enter the heat of you

Then I released my tongue

from the roof of your mouth.

"Do you know who my grandfather was?"

Of course I don't. Who was he?

"A commandor of the Japanese Military Police

in one of those countries to the south

who raped a young man one day

and hanged him that same evening."

But earlier I said

we were happy

"Yes, but only a half night remains

and the moon is as slow

as a Noh actor."

And now

you let down your hair,

so black, so evenly black

on a pillow of tuberoses

Didn't we so long suspect

there is no heaven above

and you, and I, and they, are not looking for it.

-- Goenawan Mohamad

Translated by John H. McGlynn

(Taken from Managerie 2 by courtesy of the Lontar Foundation)