God help us, the smoke!
— Smoke, God, I can live with! But not — damp!
Moving in with the same complaints that
Made others move out of this apartment:
With the same-old lamp, —
Lamp of a beggar, of a student, of a long commute.
If only there were a small tree
For the children! — And what kind of landlord will we have?
Perhaps one who’s not too demanding, one
Who takes payment in necklaces, in coins, in dribbles,
Unavoidable as fate
Before turned-out pockets.
And what kind of neighbor will we have?
A bachelor might be nice, well, if he’s quiet!
But there’s nothing nice
About this, old — warmed by our breath
House, saturated throughout!
With our mustiness! Like cotton
In my ear — intoning, you will get used to this!
Worn down not by others: but by your own thumb!
If it’s old, it’s old, if rundown, rundown,
And all of it expensive . . . So consider these: just rooms!
How we come to be born into this world
I’ll never know: but this is how we die.
30 September 1922
—translated by Mary Jane White
