Poem

Handsome, like those foam-topped tidal waves breaking high, in little crystal globes.

Handsome, like the breeze that lifts a little tuft of tulle. If tulle were life.

Handsome, like a frozen face, tear-tracked, when the sun hammers down.

Handsome. Like fire.

Handsome, like the bottomless sky, with that one proud penetrating star.

But handsome, too, like a sky that’s an arching ocean, and an earth prone as an ocean’s floor.

Handsome ocean-sky, and earth-sea floor.

            The big question is: where’s the man in a scene like this?

Handsome: the man asleep. And the night sky swarms, tropic and wide.

Handsome, in some ornamental, muggy midnight caught between cat’s paws. Sharp-nailed:

            they prick.

Handsome: the firefly swarms around you.

Handsome, like a soap bubble grazing a little black dress. Like a soap-bubble pricked with a pin.

Handsomeness a rainbow, a rainbow an arrow, an arrow in my chest.

Handsome, like shadows slow-rolling on a Japanese screen.

Handsome motion.

Handsome as life and poison.

Sun-blood handsome. Bleeding sun.

Translated from the French by Robert Archambeau