[This Time I Won't Permit the Blue]

I won't permit the flight of perfumes, the air

beaten by sounds and by wings, the fast flashes

of a pigeon mirrored in the shadow

of the eaves, that, walking, embroiders the edge,

that throws itself in the vacuum only to later

rise up. They must drag me through the streets

to beat my body, mutilated by every geography,

oblivious to every tendency, in order to beat

the wound in me asleep in stupor.

[NOW THAT TIME SEEMS ALL MINE]

Now that time seems all mine

and no one calls me for lunch or dinner,

now that I can stay to watch

how a cloud loosens and drains itself,

how a cat walks on the roof

in the immense luxury of a prowl, now

that what waits for me every day

is the unlimited length of a night

where there is no call and no longer a reason

to undress in a hurry to rest inside

the blinding sweetness of a body that waits for me,

now that the morning is no more a beginning

and silently leaves me to my plans,

to all the cadences of my voice, now

suddenly I would like prison.

Translated by Judith Baumel