Cortazar

Nocturne


Tonight I have black hands, a sweaty heart
as if I'd just wrestled into oblivion the centipede of smoke.
Everything stayed back there, the bottles, the ship,
I don't know if they loved me or ever hoped to see me.
The newspaper tossed on the bed tells of diplomatic meetings,
an exploratory bloodletting, knocked off happily in four sets.
A towering forest surrounds this house in the city's center,
I know, I can feel a blind man dying nearby.
My wife goes up and down a little ladder
like a sea captain who doesn't trust the stars.
There's a cup of milk, sheets of paper, eleven at night.
Outside it seems as if packs of horses were coming
up to the window at my back.


trns. by Stephen Kessler


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