Not even the buxom blond in a G-string sitting at the beach in Szigliget
can cure me of my melancholy this stifling day, not even her breasts
or her hidden triangulated vulva, not the oiled and salted skin she has
prepared so carefully, not her breath of mint, not her practiced fingers
or insatiable nose, not even the well-intentioned syllables of Hungarian
she sends my way, or her beckoning thighs, no, there is nothing at all
I am willing to submit myself to this unenraptured dusk, I am lonely
as a dwarf at a basketball game, desireless as a pope, and I can only say
to those who have come here to be with me that it will be a long night
without much in the way of diversions, advantageous to those who are
able to fast or to pray, or quick on their feet, but without solace for the
rest of us, and that when she gets up to leave, this blond, the world will
suddenly seem emptier without good reason, the grasses will lie down
before her departing feet like the wheat of the pharaohs, and only
the summer air will know for certain what she has wrought, and why
there was no comfort in her being here, and why even her absence is
incapable of diminishing me, I who have been here all day, singing
and praying, speaking to my own body of God only knows what.
By Michael Blumenthal