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Yehuda Amichai - You Mustn`t Show Weakness
Work rating: Medium

You mustn`t show weakness
and you`ve got to have a tan.
But sometimes I feel like the thin veils
of Jewish women who faint
at weddings and on Yom Kippur.

You mustn`t show weakness
and you`ve got to make a list
of all the things you can load
in a baby carriage without a baby.

This is the way things stand now:
if I pull out the stopper
after pampering myself in the bath,
I`m afraid that all of Jerusalem, and with it the whole world,
will drain out into the huge darkness.

In the daytime I lay traps for my memories
and at night I work in the Balaam Mills,
turning curse into blessing and blessing into curse.

And don`t ever show weakness.
Sometimes I come crashing down inside myself
without anyone noticing. I`m like an ambulance
on two legs, hauling the patient
inside me to Last Aid
with the wailing of cry of a siren,
and people think it`s ordinary speech.


Translated by Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell
Source
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