from The Third

Esther Tellermann

Liquids of you
within
I saw      what you
did not see
do you know all this
time for re-digging
the ditches
I am writing you      demanding
anew
      a river.







I am writing you      we
are writing
are not including the thing
      said
you were not      you are
      there
to see you
must I open
      your shadow
in you to be
each alphabet
to provide
the light
to fall again
lower
must I sketch

      your fugue?







Give yourself but
one sound toward
our dying
on your silences light
every lamp
reach that which
of you remains
at the edge of the book
for you were writing
there where no longer
      is the division
in the rawness
      of the magnolia
what had I
burned so that
you may appear?







      One says
once more
      again
in the guise of God
invested      with
treason      of the desire
to sink
once more again
into our boxes
      of void
once more again
so as to drown
      one’s lung
      to scorch the center
      of the sign
to be in one’s whole
      halo
to hold the call
at the point of
      the thorn.







Toward
the decline of
History      the
blades      the bars
      head-on
      spurts of
      saltpeter
them lifted
in the dumbness
and the day
were they not wicks
of words
      traces
      of the lapidated

      star?







You had sojourned
still in the
grids      waiting for you
one who paints you
pitches the
      crime
in the center of the
      wheel
      brutalizes the
      mouths
invents another
      caress.







Over you the bone
      the sky
accessory of the
      light
the yellow of the
      jew
why does God
bury the
lamentations
and desert
the fists?
Something
of you      cries out
echoed
the strike
came with
the reading
of dead ends
made      the order
      of the mad.







Stones      obscure
glimmers      not one
      to warn
cables had
striated      the earth
      at the place of
      the skin
      was the poem
      ripped open
wanted      wanted
      to follow
the nerve and
      the evidence
to the corners
      of the mouth
trickle of blood

I wanted to cover you
      with vowels.





There too
you told me
time stops if
you do not speak
deserts my voice
      the color
      pales
      Empires.
Put the lapis
deep in the corridors
come to the end
of sleep
      unseal
the tropes      go
to the outer
lose yourself to your
self and
      breathe me
sister in death
we would sleep
beneath our eyelids
would give ourselves
      to the moment.

 





      Were you
ore
            cut
bead of metal?
Bound by mouths
occupied by shadow?
      Had I wanted
to heavy you
      with words?
What would rise
      from the world and the
stonings?
To see you I
had to open
      the earth
from below.

translated from the French by Tim DeMay