구석기 시대 활을 처음 발명한 자는
한밤중 고양이가 등을 곧추세우는 걸
유심히 보아두었을지 모른다

저 미지를 향해
척추에 꽂아둔 공포를 힘껏 쏘아올리는
직선의 힘을

가진 적이 많아서
잃어버린 것투성이인 울음이
가진 적이 없어서
잃어버린 것투성이인 것만 같은 울음에게
활을 겨누던 시간들이
흐른 후

19세기 베를린에 살던
부슈만 씨도
한참이나 관찰했으리라

기지개를 쫘악 펴고 일어난 길고양이는
일평생 척추에 심어준 상처로 성대가 트인다는 것을

버림받은 이가 버림받은 이에게
마음 여린 이가 마음 여린 이에게 내밀었던
덥썩덥썩 잡았던 손목들이
싹둑싹둑 잘려나갈 때

세상 만물이 궁수처럼 흔들림이 없고
사방 천지가 온통 과녁뿐이란 사실이
단지 참혹했을 때

그는 집에 돌아와
울음이 그칠 때까지 주름상자를 접고 접어
오로지 탄식만으로 발성하는
아코디언을 발명하게 되었으리라

The man who first invented a bow in the Old Stone Age
might have taken a close look at
a cat straightening its back at midnight.

The power of a straight line
shooting hard the fear which had penetrated the spine
toward the far-off unknown.

After the time had passed
when the cry full of lost things
as it had too many things
shot an arrow at
the cry that seemed to be full of lost things
as it had nothing,

Mr. Bushuman,
who once lived in Berlin in the 19th century,
might have observed at leisure

that a wild cat which stretched and stood up,
could open its vocal cords by the injury planted in its spine all its life.

When the wrists seized and proffered
by an abandoned person to an abandoned person
by a tender-hearted person to a tender-hearted person
were cut off, snip-snip,

still nothing in the world was not shaken like the archer,
everything all around in the world was just targets,
when it was just horrible,

he came back home,
folded, folded the bellows until the crying stopped
and so came to invent the accordion
that phonated with nothing but sighs.