Impossible Friendships
For example, with someone who no longer is,
who exists only in yellowed letters.
.
Or long walks beside a stream,
whose depths hold hidden
.
porcelain cups—and the talks about philosophy
with a timid student or the postman.
.
A passerby with proud eyes
whom you’ll never know.
.
Friendship with this world, ever more perfect
(if not for the salty smell of blood).
.
The old man sipping coffee
in St.-Lazare, who reminds you of someone.
,
Faces flashing by
in local trains—
.
the happy faces of travelers headed perhaps
for a splendid ball, or a beheading.
.
And friendship with yourself
—since after all you don’t know who you are.
..
by Adam Zagajewski
from Eternal Enemies
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC
translated by Clare Cavanagh