Light within the Shade: Eight Hundred Years of Hungarian Poetry

Late Lament

at t i l a józ se f | 163 Late Lament I burn with ninety-six degrees of fever; Mother, you aren’t nursing me. Beckoned, you went, lay down with my bereaver, you loose, light girl, preferred death’s company. From lovely women, autumns soft and heady, I strive to piece you back together, yearning; but I am running out of time already, near spent out with this burning. I’d gone to Szabadszállás,* I remember, the last days of the wars; for Budapest lay stricken that November, and there was no bread in the city’s stores. I’d bought potatoes, millet tied in sacking, I lay across a train’s roof, belly-prone; would not take “no” until I’d got a chicken, but when I came, you’d gone. You stole yourself away from me, gave over your warm breasts to the worms. You comforted and chid your son and lover, and look how lying were your sweetest terms. You cooled my soup, you stirred it and you blew it, ”Eat up, my angel, grow up big for me . . .” and now your void mouth tastes an earthy suet— cheating and treachery. I should have eaten you! . . . it was your dinner— did I ask you? Must you cripple your back with laundry, breadwinner, and use a wooden box to set it true? Just spank me once again, I’d be exultant, happy because I could then strike you back! You are no good! spitefully nonexistent! You spoiled it all, you lack! 164 | Light within the Shade You, you’re a bigger fraud than the deceiver who vows more than she gives! You sneaked away from me, your dearest lover, the pangs of labor and the faith that lives. Gipsy! All that you gave, ingratiating, you stole back in the end. Listen, I’ll curse: Mummy, you hear? the sound of a child, hating.— So scold me! Make it worse! My mind is slowly clearing, slowly dawning, the sad old myth must die. The child sees now how foolish is his yearning, must learn to let his mother’s love go by. Man born of woman must be disappointed: she will cheat him, or he her, at the last. In struggle, or in peace, he is appointed to taste the selfsame dust. 1935; December 1936 *A small town in Hungary. ...