Exorcism

‘You’re making me into something I’m not.’

Then she had to stoop

to pick something up; I saw
a few vertebrae,
then quickly touched

her spine.

She shivered; turned,
stood up straight;
greets me with a laugh

and is gone.


*

Having been lying on one’s left side;

having to lie on my right side.

The unforgettable face:
remembered with ever

greater effort, seen

again. In it, the eyes;
the cheekbones,
the nose; her mouth

which I never knew.


*

That you never existed.

I suddenly let myself slip;
and I hide my face.

The winter is long dead.

The swifts are back.

Have I always loved you;
or has she never existed.
Memories
are not memories.

Memory is perception.


*

Where she now is, now

I do not know. Just as she

happens to think of me, I
might happen not to think of
her. So, precisely where there is

nothing, there is always

something. By denying
motion I cannot even
manage it here,

manage it now.


*

As soon as it looks at itself

it is never anything else.
It is indivisible,
innumerable.

Come and stand on my shoes again:
then I can see your face.

It is broad daylight;
it has rained;
your eyes are glistening for something;

an ant is searching for something.


*

It’s clearer now in my head;
I think I am in my head;

I can see the other islands
again. The sea appears
to have calmed down as well.

And so I repeat myself:

controlled despair about nothing.

The myrtle has started to blossom again.
With a fresh laurel branch
I manage to beat off
most of the flies.


*

She stoops

to pick something up:
because she had dropped something.

To see her stoop like that

I got her to drop something.
Before she leaves the room
and closes me behind her,

I get her to do it one more time.

And that’s enough: no more.
At last: off you go.

Farewell.