Elegy

By Pierre Martory
Translated By John Ashbery
Adieu near those fields that smoke disembowels                   
                 And that your arm pushes away
For a long time until the inevitable stratum of the                   
                 Adieus until the next                               
                             Adieu   
 
The door in a cliff has closed. I wanted
Daylight to enter here only through the arc-lamp of your eyes
That the limits of this place be defined only
By the carnal walls our bodies erected   
 
Opened wider on the recaptured past than the smallest
Pocket-watch and its visible trail ever were
Your mouth swallowed the hour and my teeth broke on it
When I entered you with kisses   
 
Under the full-blown palm of multiple hands
The rose you know, on the ground now,
Perfumed the silence and killed our secrets
Marking our garden with fear that was no longer fear   
 
Adieu    the songs are ended    the years disemboweled
                  And may your body distance itself
For a long time until the ineluctable regret of
                  Adieus until forever

Copyright Credit: “Elegy” from The Landscapist: Selected Poems by Pierre Martory, translated by John Ashbery. English translation copyright 1961, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2008 by John Ashbery. Reprinted by permission of Georges Borchardt, Inc., on behalf of John Ashbery. All rights reserved.
Source: Poetry (June 1993)