In the bedroom the sick mind and the prone body.
The flame pierces.
The triangle of the lamp on the ceiling lines up with
the next room.
When all the pains are parallel, there’s no escape.
When there’s no hope for anything but the last drop,
the last instant, the chain is lifted.
I examine the triangle with a vision distorted by fe-
ver and by heartbeats that guide the danger.
On the wall opposite the mirror—that icy black
abyss ruled by a threatening void and an equally threat-
ening silence: the likelihood of every possible lacera-
tion—I can glimpse blessed landscapes smiling under
sunbeams, luminous bells, shouts filling the air, many
different colors, brilliant gusts against an overloaded
sky.
But within the oval holding my whole countenance
frozen, my memory anxious, lacerated, spent by con-
stantly renewed efforts—just then I have the precise
notion of time regained, of someone coming, and the
limit of our chaotic movements in that narrow space
already renewed.
Translated by Richard Howard