PAUL ÉLUARDHer eyes she keeps always open
And doesn’t let me sleep.
Her dreams in broad daylight
Make the suns evaporate,
Make me laugh, weep and laugh,
And speak, with nothing to say.
—mary ann caws
I’ve Told You
I’ve told you for the clouds
Told you for the ocean’s tree
For each wave for birds in the leaves
For the small stones of sound
For the familiar hands
For the eye changing to face or landscape
And sleep restores color to the sky
For all the night drunk deep
For the grillwork of the roads
For the window opened for a forehead laid bare
I’ve told you for your thoughts your words
Every caress every confidence survives.
—mary ann caws
The Diamond He Didn’t Give You
The diamond he didn’t give you, because he only had it as his life was ending,
he didn’t know its music any longer, he couldn’t toss it into the air, he had lost the
illusion of the sun, he no longer saw the stone of your nakedness, the jewel of this
ring turned towards you.
From the arabesque closing the places of drunkenness, the sweet thorn, the
skeleton of your thumb and all these foreseeing signs of the animal fire that will
swallow in one returning wink of flame your Santa Clara grace.
In the places of drunkenness, the shudder of palms and black wine rages. The
figures in jagged relief of yesterday’s judgment keep for the days their half-open
hours. Are you sure, oh heroine with lighthouse senses, of having vanquished all
mercy and shadow, these two washerwoman sisters? Let’s seize them by the
throat, they are without loveliness and for what we want to do with them, the
world will detach itself rather quickly from their mane, painting incense along
the edge of the fountains.
—mary ann caws