Poetry

Kertész: Latrine

by George Szirtes

Four poilus in a wood austerely shitting.

Death watches them, laughing, its sides splitting.

Life is a cry followed by laughter.

The body before, the waste after.

Could one hear in that wood the gentle click

of the shutter like the breaking of a stick

or the safety catch on its climacteric

Like the four winds. Like a low fart that rips

clean air in two, like urine that drips.

Four squatting footsoldiers of the Apocalypse.

Kiss them lightly, faint breeze in the small leaves,

be the mop on the brow, the sigh that relieves.

Let them dump and move on into the dark plate

of the unexposed future, too little and too late.

André Kertész, Latrine, Gologóry, Poland, 1915-16.