“A shadow will trace the outline…”
~ culled from Jacques Brault’s “Visitation,”
erasure-translation by Jean Morris
Today we do nothing, once again,
of great importance. We wash our faces,
brush our teeth, grind the coffee
to measure in a cone of paper for heated
water to pass through. The deck we swept
clean of leaves yesterday is mottled
with seven shades of rust and yellow.
How many moths sheltered behind the glass
lantern by the door? Last night’s letter
that made me cry is folded back into its small
envelope. Why do I still care about
why a woman I used to know stopped
speaking to me for the last sixteen years?
It’s time to bring in the pots of jasmine,
though when I open the windows the air
smells like anise. I score the dark leather
of a pomegranate to release its hundred
hundred seeds from the pod. That’s how
I know how we are held: so lightly
in the bowl of this brimming life.
In response to Via Negativa: Erasure Translation....