The Yale Anthology of Twentieth-Century French Poetry

SAINT-POL ROUX

of a swallow hurtles through the infinite only to encounter a virgin’s rising
vow.
You can’t miss the manger star.
It’s of course within you.
But here back on the velvet is beauty all involved with putting on her dawn
blouse.

Suddenly the neighbourhood rooster lets forth with a great crow of a rusted key
in a lock.

Venus has just slipped behind a rose bush when from one end of this wretched
world to the other the roosters are all flinging open the shutters. Now at last the
Aviary opens up, a vast utterly blank eyelid.
No more velvet or jewels, no more swallows or vows, no more rare birds or
chickens, no perch, no white path or rose bush, no blouse or beauty, nothing at
all—nothing but the great Peacock of Life in all his sapphire glory making a wheel
out of our eyes.
—robin magowan

Sunrise

To Eugène Pierre

The splendid Cheek emerges from the hawthorn muslins.

—Oh charitable full-blown, manifest so smoothly in this rosiness, shall I be to
you, during your daily round, shall I be to you by my unworthy deeds or my wise
ones, shall I be to you a caress or shall I be to you the bellows, sun, and will you
linger before my sign as charming Joshua’s friend or then, savage Judas, shall I
drive back your modesty behind the immense waterlilies of the sky until it’s time
to bleed on the banished seashells?

The splendid Cheek emerges from the hawthorn muslins.

—mary ann caws