it's midnight almost and I silently stare
into the blackness before me, no image of the
day left, no dream left of the night, pretty
or melancholy, as if time came to a standstill

in vain I strive to reawaken the image of your face
in vain all recollections, as if they'd broken loose
the twitching of hands reverberating through the dark
and the sighs, the beloved words

I want, at least, to recall the feeling
the last trace of beauty after love is over
the smell, the taste; abysmal emptiness

wafts up to me as I stand on the vast
white sand of the shore and the fog falls
and I do not see, do not feel anything anymore.

Translation: 2002, Mia Dintinjana and Phillis Levin