Julio Cortázar

"Le Dome"

                                                                                                                                    Montparnasse


  


This keepsake you've bequeathed me, a face among mirrors and dirty saucers,
contributes to my suspicion that the universe isn't perfect.
The awkwardness of our last hour together
argues the certainty that the sun is poisoned,
that inside every grain of wheat a deadly weapon trembles,
when it all should have come clear, in a silence
where nothing would have been left unsaid.
But that's not how it was, and we parted
the way we deserved to, really, in a filthy cafe,
surrounded by ghosts and cigarette butts,
mixing our pitiful kisses with night's undertow.


trns. by Stephen Kessler 


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