Poem: Cat in an Empty Apartment

As we got in the van, someone asked about favorite poets, and the girl who had talked about translating Jackie Kay into Polish said she for one liked to read Wislawa Szymborska. I remember feeling a pinch of anxiety that I had not read Szymborska, but looking back, wasn't it wonderful to have met a reader of hers?

Cat in an Empty Apartment

Die - You can't do that to a cat.
Since what can a cat do
in an empty apartment?
Climb the walls?
Rub up against the furniture?
Nothing seems different here,
but nothing is the same.
Nothing has been moved,
but there's more space.
And at nighttime no lamps are lit.

Footsteps on the staircase,
but they're new ones.
The hand that puts fish on the saucer
has changed, too.

Something doesn't start
at its usual time.
Something doesn't happen
as it should. Someone was always, always here,
then suddenly disappeared
and stubbornly stays disappeared.

Every closet’s been examined.
Every shelf has been explored.
Excavations under the carpet turned up nothing.
A commandment was even broken:
papers scattered everywhere.
What remains to be done.
Just sleep and wait.

Just wait till he turns up,
just let him show his face.
Will he ever get a lesson
on what not to do to a cat.
Sidle toward him
as if unwilling
and ever so slow
on visibly offended paws,
and no leaps or squeals at least to start.
--tr. Clare Cavanaugh and Stanislaw Baranczak