O elephantine Pan in the china shop of the muses
behind the veils you look for song, you practice
thinking: "We are
a conversation," you say, "We are
elephants"

and you are utterly alone with these sentences
lonelier than dialogues, the thickest skin
lonelier than the world's electric appliances

energy-saving light bulbs, geothermal heat pumps
neglected and hungry for love they approach
hesitantly out of the unending darkness

against the hidden latticework of your cubicle
against your knowledgeable hands and knees
your sleeping feet, your imaginary wings
they rub their chrome, synthetic coats …

The objects, semi-skilled in helplessness
impossibility of touch

the song, under its sleeping cap of stars
it moves the lonely boiler, the roaming
fan
also
your roaming eye

in a communal nest without electricity
without thought
only gravity-bound bodies, their almost colony-building panic
before the coming winter.

Translated by Christian Hawkey