On the Mouth We Put Drops
Tomaž Šalamun

In turn I slobbered my hands to be able to                     

flatten the woods.                                                       

To be able to recite Racine.

To repair the tent that Artaud                                                     

perforated to Valéry.

In the snowball there was a cuttlefish bone

which exploded near the wall. When

SEA was written with dough

on my six soldiers, where was the seventh one?

I remember unknown persons joined to play

when the boys already wanted to get up.

I shivered.                                                              

They would carry away the black sun

as a keepsake, like saltcellars.

The black sun vomited white foam.

The dark gray light above hills

on the other side of the Loire delta

is completely different than the light

of the sky above clouds when the day breaks.

The seed smoothes out the cube.

 

Translated from the Slovenian by Thomas Kane and the author