The Guardian
(Az őrző)
Tibor Palkó: Black Hearts
A black dog sits nervously
in the frost numbing the senses.
It raises its chest angrily
among the set traces of smells,
its ears have opened,
its legs are elongated, like those of
a thin devil after dark.
It has been starved, but it feels something now,
underneath the fading tree
shadowless, it awaits an apparition.
Above it the rigid leaves
of the blackened branches sometimes crack.
The heavy air swallows the horizon,
it burns the skin, irritates the mucuous membrane
of the windpipe and the branching bronchia.
Distant, odorous movements, steps
float groundlessly,
and on the line of the teeth,
upper and lower jaw strain against each other.
Like arrowheads,
the scattering ice leaves
penetrate the soft material,
or break into shapeless pieces on the ground.
The eyebrows of the woman
passing the dog
are joined, her stare is frozen
like water in the well, where she is headed,
clutching her grey child. But there is no
liquid for the mouth, the face
has no more light, there is no
forgiveness for those wandering
in the darkness. Behind the disappointed,
rattle and mouth odour float,
because poison erupts from
a stomach. While the broken
icicle starts to melt
in the white palms, turquoise
stains flow through the sky,
someone slowly bites through
the throat of the cold night.
Translator: Ágnes Csonka
