A throe upon the features
A hurry in the breath -
An ecstasy1 of parting
Denominated Death -
An anguish2 at the mention
Which when to patience grown,
Ive known permission given
To rejoin its own.
剧痛在于特征上
急切在于那迹象
告别的狂喜
称之为死亡
当去忍受成长
苦恼就因之遭遇
我知道许可已经给予
去与同类团聚
Recalibration
The repairman arrives at night to fix
the telephone wires fried by lightning.
He unscrews a metal box encasing a joint1,
and a tangle2 of colored cords spills out
like a half-remembered dream. It works,
he says. But it will never be the same.
I stand in the road and watch him
drive into the gray dawn, his palm
held open out the window.
Dreamheart
They took the old heart out of your chest
all blue and spoiled like a sick grapefruit
the way you removed your first wife from your life,
and put a strong young blonde one in her place.
What happened to the old heart is unrecorded
but the wife comes back sometimes in your dreams,
vengeful and berating1, with a hairdo orange as flame,
like a mother who has forgotten that she loved you
more than anything. How impossible it is to tell
bravery from selfishness down here,
a leap of faith from a doomed2 attempt at flight.
What happened to the old heart is the scary part:
thrown into the trash, and never seen again,
but it persists3. Now its like a ghost,
with its bloated purple face,
moving through a world of ghosts,
thats all of us;
dreaming were alive, that were in love.