The Room of Darkness

la nuit seule dans ma voix 

— Jean Senac

I am from darkness,
my homeland is an aging butterfly
my prayers are the desert.

*

I wash in rain’s spit,
in my prayers the sun
dances tip-toe.

*

My god on the brink of a death.
He the echo’s infra-violet.
He is a storm
that loves to talk.

*

I was born with a genetic defect,
one of twins: I
and solitude.
I shall give you all a sad heart,
a burst eye, a foot
with twenty toes
and other limbs left me
by my friend Time.

*

My father budded between sheets
of pouring rain, between
two moments of silence
from the widowed sky.

When I accepted him as a father
he made me paper angels
that I can beat easy
at hide-and-seek.

*

My father was the first volcano on earth
and our balcony axis of the swirling rain
at the beginning of a feast day.
Our balcony was a rowboat of tears
sometimes sunk in childish clamour.
Our balcony: a life that left  the city
and settled in a tub of imagination
…
…
In our new home
there is no balcony

*

I saw new accessories
worn by the earth
and I saw houses shed their doors
to disassociate themselves
from loved ones parting.

*

I saw cities abandon their inhabitants,
the train lines creaking
on their back
and weeping the river to bid farewell.

*

I feel blood vagrant
in my veins
I feel washrooms playing cards
atop my lighthouse head.

*

Words need someone
to scrub them with soap,
need looser clothes
and a stranger who won’t demand they smile.

*

In light
I see the darkness I see my god
I see time
I see you
…
…

but I don't see me. 

* Translated by Robin Moger, for Modern Poetry in Translation