Washed up with the layer of today,
bleeding over the slivers of schist,
we flow down asleep on our way,
our pores filled with seed and yeast.

Over the ribs of the hill,
the ledges and silver roofs raking,
a booze and marrow-filled gill,
made of shot and rays and waking.

Flaming mildew in the bore,
the astilbe's bloody finger nodes
- and then just like an atom's core
on our chalk mouths the syllable explodes,

lightning of the splitting word brew,
glowing bodkin carving ahead,
which pierces the tensed tongue through,
that leaf with blue veins so red.

O children, my pulp, the wounds I bear,
we who look each other in the eye
have always waked with the taste of blood there
of daily embodiment as time goes by.

Translated by Paul Vincent