My cat washes
with her left paw,
there will be another war.
For I have observed
that whenever she washes
with her left paw
international tension grows
considerably.
How can she possibly keep her eye
on all the five continents?
Could it be
that in her pupils
that Pythia now resides
who has the power
to predict
the whole of history
without a full-stop or comma?
It’s enough to make me howl
when I think that I
and the Heaven with its souls I have
shouldered
in the last resort
depend
on the whims of a cat.
Go and catch mice,
don’t unleash
more world wars,
damned
lazybones!
MARIN SORESCU
translated from the Romanian by Michael Hamburger