With much effort, I glimpse in the darkness and rubbish
unbaptized beings standing in every corner.
Above the bed, hiding its entreaty,
hangs a tarnished mirror with an ulcerated forehead.
Night has the mysterious gift of blindness:
you cannot be seen or see anyone else—
only the square mouths of cut-glass vases
and the dim copper of a cold teapot,
only the devil’s net and the airy cage
where space sits, like a songbird,
where a candle starts to smolder and
enclose you in a circle of pale light.
Your naked helplessness, the lord knows well!—
and that faint birthmark near the mouth.
The fallen angel, with an almost imperceptible
tremor of orange wings, opens his lifeless eyes.
Translated by Ruth Fainlight