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I was horrified.
He wanted to approach me,
but I made a sign of a cross three times -
from the right, in the middle and from the left. He could not approach me closer
than the distance of six meters.
It was a devil.
That was eighteen months ago.
I cannot pull myself together.
I do not know what to think about it.
Was it a warning for me?”
*
All poems translated by Kalina Duszka
I walk into a small neighborhood shop. A tipsy man stands out of the queue and monologues:
- Life is so good... that it makes you want to live. Life is so good... that it makes you want to drink.
Then he joins the queue behind one of the customers and says to him: - You smell so good, sir! That perfume must be expensive... Because I have no right to stay at home. She says I stink. And you smell so good! It is such a beautiful scent that one wishes it could... rub off on you!
*
The poet Józef Baran asks me how life is in Sieradz. I answer:
- You know, I have many kind, friendly people in this town. And a few, literally a few, people who would love to bury me.
Józef replies:
- They will bury you, and you will grow.
*
I am sitting with my friend, the German poet Ute Pfeiffer, in a café in Iwonicz-Zdrój. At the next table, several men are discussing polygamy. One of them says:
– Well, having seven wives — okay. But then having seven mothers- in-law!
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