The snail’s covered up
Its eyes with wax, sunk
Its head on its chest,
And is staring into itself.
Above it
The house,
Its perfect work,
Which it loathes —
Round about its house
The world,
The rest of the world,
Ordered according to certain laws
That disgust it —
And in the middle
Of this universal disgust
There it is —
The snail,
Loathing itself.
Notes
Translated by Gabriela Dragnea, Stuart Friebert, and Adriana Varga
Marin Sorescu, Hands Behind My Back, translated by Gabriela Dragnea, Stuart Friebert, and Adriana Varga, Oberlin College Press, © 1991.
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