the culminating hour: you wash windowpanes floors you slice open preserves you chop a thousand cabbages you find yourself choking on their tyrannical pallor
you make libations of docile words you rinse a mountain of dishes you pick up a pile of books from the carpet you read the first page of an old novel recollecting the whole story you catch the mirror that always goes crooked on the wall from under the heavy furniture you expel coils of dust like some rollicking kittens
you drink ersatz coffee water from the tap vodka medicinal tea you look for shoes – comfortable but cheap - you buy safety pins you wrap yourself up in the colored rags of love’s delight
in the end, it’s quiet: you listen to the snow falling forever, the stellar dust
or is this a trick, too, on the ziggurat paths of sight?
Translated from the Romanian by Carrie Messenger