Holding-Breath Diving Poem by Branko Čegec

yves sent me a message:
a girl from italy watches me under water for the third day, and i watch her.
we are there, naked and alone. above we do not know each other.
i replied, using our slang transcription:
bi kul! stej vel! after that, his next message
said he had dived again, "for it's quiet and uniquely nice down there."
i understood his cry of suffering at another, distant shore.
next i dived into marguerite yourcenar's oriental stories,
went to china, kotor, dubrovnik, came up again,
melancholically, though now that's way out of fashion.
i saw several italian, four czech, and seven pudgy hungarian girls.
i saw a sunshade restless like someone's body.
i saw a pair of blue, anxious, deep-set eyes.
i wanted to suppress my passion for diving,
but couldn't look away, or put on my sunglasses,
not at all: unable to move, i was sinking,
steadily and silently, in the sand.

08/18/01

Translation: Mario Suško