I’m damned.
Flowers wither beside me
because I make love only with God.
A cat washes my paws.
Your command burns.

I don’t consume saliva, I consume You,
who gave me life.
Will the heart disperse the clamor?
We’ll all die and depart.

The rain erases me.
Will love burn in a fire?
Will you behold who you are
without me?

 

 

Translated from the Slovenian by Brian Henry

 

 

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Tomaž Šalamun (1941–14) published more than fifty books of poetry in his native Slovenian. Translated into over twenty-five languages, his poetry received numerous awards, including the Jenko Prize, the Prešeren Prize, the European Prize for Poetry, and the Mladost Prize. In the 1990s, he served as the cultural attaché for the Slovenian embassy in New York.

Brian Henry has published eleven books of poetry, most recently Permanent State (Threadsuns), as well as a book of prose, Things Are Completely Simple: Poetry and Translation (Parlor). He has translated numerous books from Slovenian.