quietus (in translation)

i see your face
as if transient, in a dream,
my first and last love--

the retching
stickiness
of memory

and the wrench
of distance

a hand that wishes to
hold nothing
yet
lets nothing go

a wretched
and circular
desire.

i read your face
as if in memory
dearest
i read and rend your face
as if from memory.

a hand i once held
is over-full of memory
and my own hand
is over-full
of shadow--
substance.
i was robbed
of substance.
fullness--i was
robbed
of fullness,

and hang,
sick,
like a crescent moon,
somewhere between day
and hungering night

while night
empties her budget
into her own
hollowness.