and I'll catch up with it one night in front of the town-hall
the very moment a shooting star
the only one that night
informs me a catastrophe's taken place at mile 1,000
There'll be a savage in the train
a real one with smoke moustaches blown in the wind
There'll be an amazon too
and they'll find themselves side by side in the ballast
They'll congratulate each other for coming through safe and sound
and they'll look at each other as one looks at a ruined fortress collapsing from
a hilltop into the valley
meantime tipping over a great number of wagons loaded with oranges
Next year the orange tree will blossom for nothing
and there'll be droves of diseases
Right down to the trees that turn epileptic
and shake their bark on their betrotheds
A little boat passes in the current
but it's no shooting star
it's hauled by a drowned man whose long teeth scare the fish that flash like bayonets
thrusting through transparent chests
and taking off after other chests
But the drowned man rises from the water and floats like a red flag
he claps his hands clicks his teeth
his last will's in a bottle that escapes from his mouth
like a bird from its egg
In memory of their meeting the savage and the amazon will get married
in the town-hall of a little flooded village
and this will be the barge hauled by the drowned man who leads them to the mayor
who gives the usual speech while munching shoe-polish