Kawasaki Hiroshi / 川崎洋 – Ⅲ

What I Secretly Say 

 

 

 

I several times boasted

that if I could not make a living by writing

I’d do anything –

even shine shoes.

 

Now I’m not so sure

whether

I could really do shoe-shining.

 

A twenty-six year-old fishmonger

was talking on TV

about the time he decided to marry  his present wife:

 

“ ‘I’d do anything

to give you and our children a comfortable life—

even be a beggar,’

I told her.”

 

Another man there about the same age

had said this:

“ ‘We’d have a poor, hard life, but

would you go along with me?’

I said,

and she said yes.”

 

Twenty years ago

I would have slapped my knee to what the fishmonger said,

and would’ve said ,

‘That’s great!’

 

Now

what those two men said

dazzles me.

 

An idea flashes across my mind

which, if my wife heard of it,

would make her keel over.

I may already have done in secret

what, if my daughter had known it,

would send her at me with a shovel.

And I have the surprising idea

that I am more normal now than before.