The Cow

Sébastien Smirou

1: Daisy

Some flab in the blõnde in Quebec like here
the Holstein ferrous with dainty red daubs
chocolate white eye flower dress
plumping up Daisy my pinup girl
a bout with trying to curl my tongue under your teat
the heart is no longer whisked away by mousse
puffy with images for your layabout eyes
you have to face up to the facts.





2: Normandy

A box had raised the morale of the times
of the sister of the troops to distill into bags
a milk of makeup cotton under the eye
of the connoisseurs in boondocks Normandy
and whose tricked tedium the apple pink cows
or blues of the hard tack candy sucked each time in the spirit
of the pioneers would drool away as soon as I drew in
everything except to face the facts.





3: Bernice

To get a rise to this level we ride the fly
off the handle hitched by its poise to the biplane's belly
we feel hiked up by wings to the bull's-eye
of the desert of Bernice (the around-the-cow trip is largely
a snore) grazes black lakes the abyss
the wreck (one eye or two nostrils
kestrel) blown out poses as a victim at last on the
landing strip of the nose: got to face up to the facts.





4: Aleppo

By a ton of bricks a bump in the road I also hit on the eye
of the left horn I'd like to prick the secret
I guess of Daisy's age each time
I bring it up (my whole youth was sawed off
reckoning rings in the o of the poles of pines of Aleppo)
each time I'd like the man of the woods
we sometimes play to yank her horn to read there
in vain—you have to look things in the face.





5: Guillaume

If we take up Pythagoras in order to make music
light years after the echo of the movement of planets
extinct all in all our bells it's full of hot air
I join Guillaume among the autumn crocuses
at the stage of the universe poisoning coat colors
flower there my eyes are like that flower
Ben & Jerried left behind we follow the fly's flit over the field
silent you have to face things roundabout.





6: Alexandra

(When the dirty dozen re-tread across the field
of the poem on their knees the war waltz wears out
the company plastic-sealed as a yellow badge
my angel who beats his wings & that we loop you
to the mini ear metes out the same butterfly
effect from a desire to jumble the numbers
we open the hope of renovating the world
—in vain you have to face up to the facts.)





7: Cindy

Next up with her mouth Cindy turns minty a wisp
of feeling breaks at the cry from the clover between her lips
the sound barrier we saw divvy the paddy field from the meadow
cedes to this barbarism of the sound of the rotating
of the earth beneath the grinders we dig
the hell out of hear that the taste of crickets revived
as poppies lunges up to plunge there too
then sponges you you have to face the facts.





8: Semantika

In the same vein we tunnel the space from the muzzle
to the trough sinking toward the surface of the other
side of the globe of her frenzied eyes right up to the tongue
of cousin Semantika (little white rose literally
drinking from one of the arms of the Brahmaputra)
first we think miracle telepathy and then we crackle
a mental match at the flickers of evidence
that confirm: you have to face up to the facts.


translated from the French by Andrew Zawacki