AN OLD MAN

After Cavafy

Back in a corner, alone in the clatter and babble

An old man sits with his head bent over a table

And his newspaper in front of him, in the café.

Sour with old age, he ponders a dreary truth—

How little he enjoyed the years when he had youth,

Good looks and strength and clever things to say.

He knows he’s quite old now: he feels it, he sees it,

And yet the time when he was young seems—was it?

Yesterday. How quickly, how quickly it slipped away.

Now he sees how Discretion has betrayed him,

And how stupidly he let the liar persuade him

With phrases: Tomorrow. There’s plenty of time. Some day.

He recalls the pull of impulses he suppressed,

The joy he sacrificed. Every chance he lost

Ridicules his brainless prudence a different way.

But all these thoughts and memories have made

The old man dizzy. He falls asleep, his head

Resting on the table in the noisy café.