Tonight another oil-tanker has burst among the stars.
The sky grows heavy with dark curtains moving
snake-like, north and south in different waves.
Who has pulled the lever down in error
when there was no interval?
Someone says I'm the stage-manager and now light vanishes
as though spirited away by the bogeyman.
Snow on the stage melts, along with your voice, and the slabs
of the candy house we built together,
along with the cradle you wove with words.
Although it looks new, I recognise this theatre-curtain sewn
with shrouds,
with wolf-skins, with dust hanging in rags, and the remains
of hounds who were no use for hunting.
Shreds of names of those I don't know how to love.
Your hands, and mine, empty as rubber-gloves.
Our lips, strips of dried fish
repeating a few notes from great symphonies which
drown the cries of children.
Then comes the retching and the ice-cubes shaped like
penguins
welling up in my throat. Before they fall to the floor,
they rattle against my teeth with a noise like keys
about to open a door.
Is it you, this sleeping dog that looks dead, that gives
and takes away warmth from between my legs?
Maybe I am the dog, and you
the beggar.

Translated by Anna Crowe