SUNDAY LATE, BARCELONA Poem by Danie Marais

Rambla de Catalunya at a festive little table
with a red tablecloth;
late everywhere full, everywhere the sound of Spanish -
Spanish with people in it,
full of far away, cold beer and tapas
that smells so tasty
that everything must taste of another life after this,
but you say would I please "bitte keine Witze machen"
because you're going to cry,
you eyes are already swimming.
You don't know what's suddenly gone so wrong,
probably hormones, but the whole day you've
been seeing yourself getting fatter in these shining shop windows
if every woman gets old like you in this beautiful city
and your hair failing out and your bright suit on
and I'm not to tell you that I think you're beautiful
because how would I know because look
I just don't really look for you in a crowded room anymore.
The problem's with me, you see?
I'm always somewhere else, I always act as if
all vanity is nonsense.
And I also think that everything is made
of rotting ruins,
but I shouldn't think that I'm helping you
because anyway other men are "überhaupt nicht"
totally unlike me
and you also want to be beautiful for other men, so that
they have to look at you, so that
you can feel good with me
and I say but they do look at you, they do look
I swear,
but you're not convinced because you swallow
your sorrow so absolutely, so irrationally, you look so
abandoned by me
and it makes me want to become irrationally angry, out of
powerlessness, but
I just take a serious sip of beer,
try to look sympathetic, try
to take your hand,
but you pull away and we just sit there
until you can't do it anymore and say that we should
‘bitte' go to the hotel and bed
you feel nauseous with misery you have a stone in your stomach,
"einen Stein im Bauch",
you're sorry you don't know, maybe nothing,
"es geht schon wieder"
but now you're really crying and I
I sit and look
at you
jut sit
and look at you.