sadness ripe and crumbling mirrors her
in the market salesman's trays

delicate is she who loves apples
he sees that he sees her stubbornly

laughing about his sweet-n-sour jokes
he'd like to draw his jack-knife now

and show her both the rough pip halves
she's doubtful for what seems a fruitless hour

in the nick of time she catches the last bus

when she goes off to the dancehall
she bears a basket laden with red cheeks

there on her sun-coloured arms
lean the childmen begging
to take waterfruit to roofhouse roof

but she goes there to dance
when she goes there
she goes there to dance

when she's there everything starts to dance
a little gospel squeal may sail across
from the south of tobacco faraway america

my lockhips want to sway
attempt her emptiness
until I am broken by dawn
and she is asleep beside me again

Translation by Willem Groenewegen