FOOTBALL PLAYER

FOOTBALL PLAYER

He’s a football player.
Kicks a ball, every day, he kicks a ball.
One day,
He kicked love up high into the sky.
It stayed there
And didn’t come down.
People thought it must be the sun,
The moon, or a new star.
Inside me,
A ball that never comes down,
Hangs suspended in the sky.
You can see it become fire,
Become love
Become a star.

KAZUKO SHIRAISHI, Japan (1931)
Translation Stanley Barkan