if you try to fit in somewhere
and it tires you out

someone asks his table-companions:
what is transcendental and you look at everything
left over on the plates, outside
leaves are whipped up by the wind, it's going
to rain, you think, and that you aren't afraid,
you say to yourself, at night
abroad, then someone asks you about
transience, whether you write to counter that
and if not, is it therapeutic then

you imagine gum-trees
in the tropics, cooing
doves in gum-trees

Translated by Judith Wilkinson