Summer rain. Black evening. On the edge
of a death notice the available data scribbled
that set the interview going, the memory
of distanced encounters which we
had hoped had held a little more future.

The new New Yorker still open at the place.
What does future mean when our last conversation
can be endlessly repeated on a tape loop
and an obituary has been on the files for ten years.
Dry summer. The evening is bright.

We must get ready for a journey. We have
to go through a bank of fog of a white that's as white
as Chinese mourning. No citations please.
The subject is finished with. The barley fields are empty
and, we read, the cities are complex.
In memoriam Donald Barthelme

Translated by Catherine Hales