Here I am exposed like everyone,

one hand already in the other world,

at my throat a soft cord

which floods me with music and drains me of blood.

This habit of writing, it’s terrible,

—one day I will die of loving someone—,

they say that’s being a poet; I say it’s being a saint.

No one canonizes us but we go on,

strange halos at our temples.

Sometimes we glow at night,

we converse with people we can’t see,

we see a lot of ghosts

and we sleep sitting up in the livingroom.

Bosses despise us, employees laugh at us

when our back is turned,

and dogs follow us down the street.

I am part saint and part beggar

for loving a person more than things

for never wearing shoes

for hoping God will come down to comb my hair.

(translated by Pamela Carmell)