after Reverdy
To evade the lurking reef
that shadows me
that awaits the definitive step
to avoid ever turning again
over the love-slope deathlessly falling away
the love detaching itself from your guts
those free-verse unreasoning looks
and that portrait of you I would like to retouch
you tender-savage quick one in ardour’s shadow
that look dissolving itself in the envious night
that look spitting tongues of jealous fire
in the evening dress that mantles the earth
at the moment when you go forth
far gone in despair
I will have buried my face in ice
the heart spiked by a thousand memorial fires
the reef of the future and death behind
and your smile too shallow
a moat
between us
words free
and the gestures withheld
of the winged hands extended in open sesame
until in the close weft dimly appears
the unheard-of wound whose salve I would be