Peter Robinson Award winning poet and translator

The Great Friend and Other Translated Poems

Pierre Reverdy

ON TEN FINGERS

A line correctly pitched
My glance
My arteries' beat
I pass incognito
And you see the light advance

The door is open
And the sad sign has entered
The lamp has been lit
When a hand that runs
Around the lampshade
- Look it's transparent -
falls finally into the sugar bowl

Violin broken
Book put by
Silent mouth
Her eyes were raised towards me
And I have blinked my eyelids
One word
The very last
I hold between my fingers
Her still lukewarm hand