Hans Werner Cohn
About the Man who Sits in the Cellar
The man sits in the cellar
and fades away:
a sprouting potato in the corner.
His hands hang flabbily across the knees
the shoulders swallow the head.
Sometimes the woman
comes into the cellar
and combs his hair
and wipes his ears
takes his arm and pulls him
as if on a lead
into the parlour:
there her lady-friends sit around the table.
They say: how nice! and also: how clever!
For in daylight he does not look so bad,
the man,
and thoughts become rampant
in the cellar-air
and now he turns them out in front of the lady-friends,
the man.
At the end of the presentation the woman pulls the man
back into the cellar.
This is her hour.
True: he is looking forward to it
because a little light
gets through the velvet
of the curtains
in the parlour.
But: it is her hour.
His hour will come
his hour is coming
at night.
The woman lies in bed
but the man is awake.
His hour is coming.
His head shoots up
between the shoulders
and knocks against the ceiling
red and wild
in time with the heart.
The hands become tense
red and wild
and beat in time with the heart
against the cellar-door.
The woman lies in bed
bathed in fear
in fear.
Translated by Frederick Werner Cohn
Page(s) 89-91
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