Like Our Bodies' Imprint
Like our bodies' imprint
Not a sign will remain that we were in this place.
The world closes behind us,
The sand straightens itself.
Dates are already in view
In which you no longer exist,
Already a wind blows clouds
Which will not rain on us both.
And your name is already in the passenger lists of ships,
And in the registers of hotels,
Whose names alone
Deaden the heart.
The three languages I know,
All the colors in which I see and dream:
None will help me.
Copyright Credit: Yehuda Amichai, "It’s Been a While Since They Asked" from The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai. Copyright © 2015 by Yehuda Amichai. Reprinted by permission of Hana Amichai.
Source: The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2015)