I would like to write
the kindest and plainest lines,
like blameless poets know how to,
avoiding excesses, dissonance,
without falling into the trap of perverse words,
with the slight restriction of not compromising
a soul or a name. I want to write like they do.

(With thin neat fingertips
they hold the infallible quill,
and they don't scratch but caress
the white skin of the page; the thrill
of pleasure will be the poem
the world awaited.)

I want to write like they do, with that fine
nib of warmth. We would skip over
the details of suffocations, the love of butchers,
the fat on capital letters, man's instinctive
certainty: I will die.
We would celebrate only
certain beauty, certain dim regions.

And then, put our hearts away
in the drawer for well-oiled tools,
and await,
like the just, the coming
of immortality.

Translated by D. Sam Abrams