he pretends he's writing that noon's biography
while pursuing an apparition with your visage in the rain
she tries obstinately to dry its blue tear
knowing that in its wake the unhealed thought
of the sleepless night will remain
fairly divided between one groping and another
(the one
who looked from a distance how others had abandoned his own foolishness
in the water and the one with his eyes swollen from too much crying
had doubtlessly the same visage
your own)
however much you'd hate yourself
you are and will remain closer to me
than the occasional swimmer who seized by panic
troubles the peacefulness of these lines
which a virus that doesn't care about the language they are written in
could easily lure them in a trap of wet cloth impregnated
with gypsum
just fit for treason's grin and terror
this last attempt
to recognize that the whole thing is but a farce
Oh
how have they all managed to borrow your visage and likeness
as soon as I began to examine
the clay leaves of the tree
which my father had had the whim of planting
right between the eyebrows of the high voltage transformer
Ludwigsburg, July 1998
(from the volume Miercurea de cenusa/ Ash Wednesday, Marineasa Publishers, 2000)
Translated from the Rumanian of Traian Pop Traian by Heat
copyright 1998
Traian
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