The Suicide

Bereft of soul

My body shall be bare.

Bereft of body

My soul shall be bare.

Which would you rather have

O kind sea?

Which is the more dead

Of the two?

I throw the bodies out,

I cannot stand their smell.

Only the souls may enter

The vortex of sea.

Only the souls know how to sing

At the vortex of the sea.

Your body shall be dead,

Poor thing,

Dead as driftwood, drifting

And drifting to the shore.

Your body shall ride the tide,

Rider, slumped dead

On white war-house.

Charging.

Your body shall bruise white

Against the coral reefs,

Your body,

Your lonely body.

I tell you, sea,

I have enough courage to die,

But not enough.

Not enough to disobey him

Who said: Do not die

And hurt me that certain way.

How easy your duties are.

How simple.

Only roar a hungry roar,

Leao forward,

And retreat.

You swing and you swing,

O sea, you play a child's game.

But,

I must pose.

I must pretend,

I must act the role

Of happy woman,

Happy wife.

I must keep the right distance

Between me and the low.

And I must keep the right distance

Between me and the high.

O sea, i am fed up

I want to be simple

I want to be loved

And

If love is not to be had,

I want to be dead, just dead

While I enter deeper,

With joy I discover

The sea's hostile cold

Is after all skin-deep.

The sea's inner chambers

Are all very warm.

There must be a sun slumbering

At the vortex of the sea.

O sea, i am happy swimming

Happy, happy, happy ...

The only movement i know well

Is certainly the swim.

It comes naturally to me.

I had a house a Malabar

And a pale-green pond.

I did all my growing there

In the bright summer months.

I swam about and floated,

And divided into the cold and green

I lay speckled green and gold

In all the hours of the sun,

Until

My grandmother cried,

Darling, you must stop this bathing now.

You are much too big to play

Naked in the pond.

Yes, the only movement i really know

Is swimming,

It comes naturally to me.

The white man who offers

To help me forget,

The white man who offers

Himself as a stiff drink,

Is for me,

To tell the truth,

Only water.

Only a pale-green pond

Glimmering in the sun.

In him I swim

All broken with longing.

In his robust blood i float

Drying off my tears.

Yet i never can forget

The only man who hurts.

The only one who seems to know

The only way to hurt.

Holding you is easy

Clutching at moving water,

I tell you, sea,

This is easy,

But to hold him for half a day

Was a difficult task.

It required drinks

To hold him down.

To make him love.

But, when he did not love,

Believe me,

All I could do was to sob like a fool.

O sea,

You generous cow,

You and I are big flops.

We are too sentimental

For our own

Good.

Lights are moving on the shore.

But I shall not return.

Sea, toss my body back

That he knew how to love.

Bereft of body

My soul shall be free.

Take in my naked soul

That he knew how to hurt.

Only the soul knows how to sing

At the vortex of the sea.