In on a very chic tailor a purveyor to the king
This merchant was going to lop off some heads
From mannequins dressed in the latest styles
The crowd in all directions stirred grinding down
Loveless shadows that were dragged across the ground
And towards a sky full of lakes of light their hands were
Time to time taking flight like white birds
My ship will sail tomorrow for America
And I will never return
With money won on the lyrical prairies
To guide my blind shadow along streets I loved
For it’s all right for the soldier to return from India
The speculators have sold all my fine gold knickknacks
But dressed in a new suit I want to sleep at last
Under trees full of mute birds and apes
The mannequins getting undressed for him
Shook out their clothing then fitted him
The garment of a dead lord never paid for
This mark-down suited him like a millionaire
Outside the years
Watch the victim mannequins
Through the windows
And pass on in chains
Intercalated in the year were widow days
Bloody and slow burial fridays
White and entirely black beaten by the raining skies
When the devil’s wife thrashes her lover
Then in an autumnal harbor with its dim leaves
When the crowds’ hands there were leafening also
He placed his suitcase on the ship’s deck
And sat down
The winds of Ocean huffing their threats
Left in his hair their long moist kisses
Some emigrants stretched their weary hands toward harbor
And others knelt down weeping
He watched for a long time the dying shores
Only toy boats trembled along the horizon
A really small bouquet floating aimlessly
Covered the Ocean with immense blossoming
He had longed for that bouquet like the glory
Of playing amongst dolphins in other seas
And in his memory was woven
An endless tapestry
Depicting his story
But to drown and turn to lice
Those willful weavers who won’t stop asking questions
He got married like a doge
To a modern old maid siren
Swell towards night O Sea The sharks’ eyes
Even till dawn have relished from afar
Days’ carcasses gnawed by stars
Amidst the noise of the waves and the last oaths