MODULATED SUBTONES


This wanderer is lacking in all finality.
He'd like to be awake from this moment on, bearing away
the totality of dreams from sleep. Nothing can equal
his days for endlessness, but I can easily believe

you don't find them amusing. A unique chance
presents itself before he leaves. Either way
he'll think all the time of where he isn't, but the air
is good and he can hear donkey bells on the slope.

When he opens the door, it's for us to go away.
We walk along the stream, happy to think of nothing.
It was solitude which brought us together. Here in the village
a boy always buys a girl an ice cream.

I am both speaker and the one spoken to. It's time
for a wonderful lie: "conversation is sweeter
at night," "a dead branch is made more beautiful
by the complicated foliage surrounding it," "the exact

proportion of your person is impossible to share."
I find my friend again – his eyes are no longer used to me.
He covers his mouth with his hand and measures the distance
separating me from myself. I listen to him, seated

on the side of the road. I do not doubt my existence,
nor do I doubt it's personal. I repeat his questions,
turn them over as if they were dusty jewels in my hands,
look away at the thin line separating earth from sky.