as I eased into sleep amid its white rushing thrill, I was still
bright inside, a refrigerator open a sliver, a mechanically
humming swan boat. it was floating with the deceptive stuff
of dreams in its *** compartment through the ice wreath of the night
through the defrosting fluid, rotting vegetables,
the smell of stagnant ponds.

lost forms of birds drilling with sharp points from the pillow,
feather quills whispering barbs, yellowish beaks, needful of being complemented,
of the garrulous certainty of day. I sank into their downy muttering,
sank deep into what had been plucked: a clucking broodiness, stuffed
into non-ironing sheets, nestled my wearied head, the body, a leaden egg in
the over-white of its enthusiasm.

I saw half of the swans in their evening form, they were taking
the measure of the edges of the approaching night, of this smouldering reliquary
full of loose ends, severed tracks. I was the ugly duckling
waking in the wrong surroundings. as everything around me, as the light
subsided, I saw how the pen was leading her cygnets
quickly over earth and grass to the canal.

Translation Catherine Hales