Poetry by Agnieszka Kuciak
translated by Ewa Chrusciel

 
A GIRL WITH STRIPED EYES

This was a strange girl—the tigers jumped out of her. Huge
and striped, completely untamed. How did they fit in her—
so small, so kind, so delicate? However, he wedded her.

He thought: everybody has weaknesses. We will manage.

First they pretended these were cats. The milk in a saucer
and stroking. The whole house filled with their purring. They only wanted
to bite off a finger, never more. They drowned the first one
in a pond, the second went for a fur, the third—they lost in
a forest, the fourth—they gave away to a circus. They managed
to encourage the fifth one toward a vegetarian diet,
and the sixth one even toward a muzzle. But the seventh
one ate a guy in galoshes and there was no way to pretend
he was a hoofed animal. The police came to the house.

The beauty has teeth and terrifies. The beauty is untamable.
The beauty means life in terror. This is a striped misfortune.

The girl was closed in the zoo. After all, we do not live in
a jungle.