Classic Poem

No, no, I don't like it
your going away —

Like fruit coming before blossom
like bud sprouting before seed
like spring immediately following summer,
that's not logical, please don't do
so unnatural a thing.
A husband as if cast in a mold
and you with your smooth round handwriting,
the mere thought makes me cry.
You, who are timid as a bird,
willful as a gale,
you are to be a bride

No, no, I don't like it
your going away —

How can you so easily,
how shall I say, as it were
put yourself on sale?
Because you are putting yourself on sale.
From the world of one person
to the world of millions,
and yielding to a man,
yielding to nonsense,
what an ugly thing to do.
It's like a Titian
set out for shoppers in Tsurumaki-cho.
I am lonely, sad.

Though I really don't know what to do,
it's just like watching
the large gloxinia you gave me rot,
like watching it leave me and rot,
like seeing a bird fly off into the sky
not knowing where to,
it's the sad abandon of a wave as it shatters,
brittle, lonely, searing
— But it isn't love
Mother of God
No, it isn't it isn't.
I don't know what it is
but I don't like it
your going away —
you're going away to be a bride,
offering yourself to the will of a man you don't even know