- When evening comes, and: Crouching on his hunger, and: The ones who burn snow, and: Red of leaves and foxes, and: Keep moving, and: Not guard or night watchman
When evening comesshe gathers his footsteps scattered across all the roomsrecreates him with his smile in his buttonhole and that jacket he wore as bridegroom and corpse thenonce again counts his strides that end up in the same bed
Begone!the Darkened Ones who hold him back against his willthe crumbs of their last meal are swept up with the horned ants
let him set his feet again on the four-knot ruglet him find his place in the crook of his own shoulderlet him listen to her tell contradictory versions of her consolations without interrupting herwhen she describes her rage washing the walls and the lenses of his glasses to see how he saw her
the tree with a view of her mirror can't keep from laughingher mourning can't be compared with its distress after its branches are trimmed
her house seen from outside is uninhabitednebulous silhouettes of unloved loverspass each other without touchingwithout exchanging a wordseek a book an embrace in the rumpling of sheetsrepeat the trip from doorway to bedshe counts them on her fingersmultiplies them by the speed of their steps [End Page 25] same faces same fear when they turn to see if they are being followedelusive the bed the woman and her possessions
they leave with their heads bowedthe spaces between the lines witness to their disappearance
________
for Jean-Pierre Siméon
Crouching on his hungerthe wolf drools when the woman plucks chickens with her skirt pulled up over her thighsHe knows her from late autumn when she rode the mule barebackthe beast's rough hair calmed her blood
God of wolves, she cries, head thrown back as if she were howlingwhy didn't you give the tree feathersand the chickens branchesand a cord to the goat carried off in a squall
cord tied to the goatgoat tied to the treetree tied to its shadow on the wall when evening erases the wall
only the lime tree is freeits odor drives away mosquitoes and the dead who proliferate in stagnant water
insomniac treeso much anguish silenced in your branches
________
The ones who burn snow live on the bald side of the mountaintheir white smoke slips under our doors [End Page 26] with what cold do they set their stockpots boiling?how can you believe them when their coats were emptyand they had neither a knife to cut breadnor a stick to stun chickens and they misplaced the name of the one who knew
when you die it's for life they sayyou become the last thing you sawit's there in the books
________
Red of leaves and foxesblack of clothes hung up high to keep the dead from dressing in themthe pencil behind the ear of the carpenter unclenoted the measurementssame width for the shoulders and the co≈nthe birdlime simmering in the pot annoyed the hollyhocks but enticed the copper-backed grasshopperprisoner in a matchboxshe fed on her own rage
pebble sticks toys of another erathe pebble cracked the sleep of the woman with the milky bellythe stick made the donkey and the recalcitrant sun keep moving
our poverty overflowed with amazing riches
________
For May Menassa
Keep moving,there's nothing here to seethe one you're searching for between these pages has settled into the dust of words and the last sentence rubbed with ashesthe way her mother polished copper [End Page 27] leave before the house falls to bits, and the heart sewn up after every defeatevery disillusion
what is my name, she asks the walls bent over you
her name of water and sea-foam the height of a schoolchild's pencilher name so small it takes frightwhat fingers...