When I have a stomachache, by Yehuda Amichai

When I have a stomachache

I feel like the whole world.

When I have a headache

Laughter rises in the wrong place in my body.

And when I cry, they put my father in a grave

Into earth that’s too big, and he won’t grow into it.

And when I’m a hedgehog, I’m inside-out.

The spikes grow inward and hurt.

And when I’m the prophet Ezekiel, I’ll see in the vision of the chariot

Only the dung-covered feet of an ox and filthy wheels.

I’m like a porter carrying a heavy armchair

A long way on his back

Without knowing he can put it down and sit on it.

I’m like an old-fashioned firearm,

But accurate: when I love

the recoil is fierce, back to childhood, and painful.

From “Great Tranquillity: Questions and Answers” by Yehuda Amichai, translated from the Hebrew by Glenda Abramson and Tudor Parfitt (New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1983)