The Yale Anthology of Twentieth-Century French Poetry

HABIB TENGOUR

when the two lovers wake up it is broad daylight
in the secret of their soul the table is set
I slept well /he says/ you sleep very well /she says/
it’s good when love is violent as you make it
I did nothing he says it’s a trick of fate
it’s not my body and we shall die from it
for the moment the two beds were joined the window
opened on the dream to come rose blue and musk
the summer at its apogee enchanted them
this setting once struck the souls without a heart
torment each other in listening to the romance unknotted
and Those in the dawn watching already knotted hands
—mary ann caws

In the Country of the Dead

Tiresias: Why then, o unfortunate one, thus abandon the sunlight

and come to see the dead in this ungentle place?

—The Odyssey, XI

Shadows I

All these dead

who among us will question them

will it still require a massacre
and tears
for the road beneath the earth to be traced for us

unless this wind that rips into us has
made us lose our reason

to the one point that we don’t care about the meeting

Shadows 2

All these dead
what names should be called in the circle

hands extended for a prayer of parting
but reluctantly