Maria Laïná
From: Punctuation Marks (1979)
Sequel - Five Poems
1
I thought I had died
I didn't know where I would go
So I decided to wait
for them first to lift the body
to stay by myself
I wasn't very high up
but no one noticed me
They were walking or running
looking straight ahead
Funny case
In that space I began to multiply
with surprising speed
I remember I was looking at the sky around me
rising up move
I didn't notice any tension.
2
In this condition
I didn't take up any room in the emptiness
Just one point
So I decided to leave
without being able to describe why
I got mixed up in the space in an unnatural way
even though the pain was missing
Everything came down on top of me
and then behind me
Finally it all subsided
I could — anything
without being noticed
How easy, I thought
how useless.
3
It doesn't bother me to say I died
I know it because I am standing next to myself
and I have slowly been forgotten
inside something else
I exist
Beauty doesn't hurt me anymore
I have stopped being anything
Specifically I have stopped desiring
because before I was nothing but that
I feared
Emptiness from everywhere
nothingness contains me.
4
The room stayed by itself
The there has also disappeared
Sure things happen
but nothing comes
I always lean on a light impression
without the thrill of getting wounded
When it is windy
I rock without noise
And time went by
My face quietly next to me.
5
I was left behind
I found myself in the light
I was changing places with it
Any kind of moon
could touch me
I felt that it would pass
that finally
I would have a place to stay
any kind of moon.
Translated by Karen Van Dyck
Page(s) 63-64
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