The Japanese Wife
O lord, he said,
Japanese women, real women, they have
not forgotten bowing and smiling
closing the wounds men have made;
but American women will kill you lije they
tear a lampshade,
American women care less than a dime,
they've gotten derailed, they're too nervous
to make good:
always scowling, belly-aching, disillusioned,
overwrought;
but oh lord, say, the Japanese women:
there was this one, I came home and the door
was locked and when I broke in she broke
out the bread knife and chased me under
the bed and her sister came and they
kept me under that bed for two days,
and when I came out, at last, she didn't
mention attorneys, just said, you will never
wrong me again, and I didn't;
but she died on me, and dying, said, you can
wrong me now, and I did,
but you know, I felt worse then than when
she was living;
there was no voice, no knife, nothing but
little Japanese prints on the wall,
all those tiny people sitting by red rivers
with flying green birds, and I took them face
down in a drawer with my shirts,
and it was the first time I realized that she
was died, even though I buried her;
and some day I 'll take them all out again,
all the tan- faced little people sitting happily
by their bridges and huts and mountains-
but not right now,
not just yet.
а я поняла так: "когда-нибудь я снова извлеку их на свет Божий"
Хороший перевод