773 | IN A METRO STATION

Schilderij van Mirek Kuzniar, Duitsland

IN A METRO STATION

Unhappy those who saw
a girl in the Metro

and all at once fell in love
and followed her madly

and lost her forever in the crowd.

Thus, they will be condemned
to wander aimlessly through the stations

and weep with love songs
that the street musicians sing in the tunnels.

Perhaps love is nothing more than that:

a woman or a man getting out of a carriage
at a random Metro station

then flares for a few moments
and is lost in the nameless night.

(Oscar Hahn), Chile 1938

Translation Germain Droogenbroodt – Stanley Barkan

from de “Versos robados”,
Colección Visor de Poesía, 1995