Zbigniew Herbert's "Silk of a Soul"

SILK OF A SOUL 


Never did I speak—with her 

either about love 

or about death 


only blind taste and mute touch 

used to run between us 

when absorbed in ourselves 

we lay close 


I must peek inside her 

to see what she wears 

at her centre 


when she slept 

with her lips open 

I peeked 


and what and what 

would you think 

I caught sight of 


I was expecting branches 

I was expecting a bird 

I was expecting a house by a lake 

great and silent 


but there on a glass counter 

I caught sight of 

a pair of silk stockings 


my God I’ll buy her 

those stockings 


I’ll buy them but—

what will appear then 

on the glass counter 

of the little soul 


will it be something 

which cannot be touched 

even with one finger of a dream


Note: Line breaks are mine


Translators of Herbert's "Collected Poems": Milosz, Dale, Valles

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