I, too, am looking for that deathless present,
But believe me, beyond that we share
Nothing at all. For you, life is perhaps
Sorrow and salinity. How should I know?
Something, at any rate, which has learnt
To play it cool,
Sparing no effort
To secure a glorious anaesthesia.
I have no idea
How much man must endure
Before having the pleasure to forget.
But honestly,
Is not idiosyncracy, as a stance,
The last remnant of reverence unbecoming
For this alphabetîse,
So soon a code among others?
Do you really
Want me to appear
Under such conditions? For what purpose now?
To become part
Of life's rickety plot,
An invalid
Whose protheses do not fit,
Is hardly my idea of fun.
You are still several stages
From I do not know where.
Menlo Park perhaps.
Here are not the dead,
In case you thought so,
Here are those
Who do not live.

English translation by Jenny Jochens