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An Unexpected Meeting

Wisława Szymborska

We treat each other with exceeding courtesy;

we says, it’s great to see you after all these years.

Our tigers drink milk.

Our hawks tread the ground.

Our sharks have all drowned.

Our wolves yawn beyond the open cage.

Our snakes have shed their lightning,

our apes their flights of fancy,

our peacocks have renounced their plumes.

The bats flew out of our hair long ago.

We fall silent in mid-sentence,

all smiles, past help.

Our humans

don’t know how to talk to one another.

translated from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak & Clare Cavanagh