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)