By Default

Translated by / Pierre Petiot

Row all the bitterness
Of a drowned sea
In its happiness of blues
Confit of all landmarks
In buccaneer, pitch balance

Always start over
As do those who recognize themselves
Between two waves
In the mirror of a graying sky
Ageless cloud
Of the last rain

I am learning to unbutton
The wordless laughter that arose from an imagination
That eternity lends me
Facing the other
Of whom I am told ages after Rimbaud
That I had to recognize it

But I am one
Without the bitterness of the soliloquy
Despite my heart given
To that of the seventeen-year-old poet.

9 October 2014