TE15 Lithuanian Honey Cake

Terribly in Love

EPITAPH FOR A DEAD INFANT I Stone infant with an angel’s wings, Seen from behind, obscured by olive leaves. Four months. An empty bench. It’s raining. Both parents sitting at the nursery-grave. II He cannot yet speak, though he must learn To converse with the dead. An only child, he knows more Than the living, because he calls on Eternity to give what I cannot offer. III Stone infant with an angel’s wings, a little bigger than a four-month-old (naked chubby body with a finely chiseled navel): In the solitude of the graveyard — no one’s soul. Only the rain.

And suddenly something takes away words.

Translated by H. L. Hix and the author

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