Mutsuo Takahashi
You, the ones I love, I love, I love
You, my lovers in an age of nuclear power
Beyond the window covered in black cloth
There is not a single tree to cast a shadow
Nor a single bird to wing through the air
Our field of vision is filled with thronging towers of flame
Invisible, infinitesimal gods that split and fissure continuously
Sealed in darkness, we are buck naked
There is no day, nor night, hundreds of times
No, thousands of times, we suck at one another
Ten thousand times, one hundred thousand times
We rub ourselves together
Now, no love juices overflow, no words of love leak
We discharge blood-water, painful itches run through our branches
The dead, dead, dead children born of our imaginary childbirth
Are covered in blood, for them we open the garbage in the corner of the room
We are reduced to skin and bones, our skeletons show through
Wrinkled sacks of skin merely holding dried-up organs
Our thin chests press against one another, our pelvises shudder without end
Other than one another's eye sockets which we seek out
We do not see, nor do we try to
All we have is one another, the partners we will love
Perhaps we are making love now, that is unclear
We suck at one another, we bite one another, we indulge ourselves
Until there is no we, nor me, nor you
In the world of light beyond the window covered in black cloth
There is no longer any earth nor stars, our field of vision
Is filled with forests of towers of our endless desire
That continue to multiply, that continue to spew out flame
—Translated from the Japanese by Jeffrey Angles