THE EYE OF THE SLAG HEAP

each time I end up home

as though under a warm shower

a slag heap observes me out of habit

in the chink of its triangular eye—

I take off my dress

my undergarments

and stand beneath the shower

with shoulders straightened like a cross

just in my own skin

that I’m not planning to take off

I throw on just the lace of recollections

and look through them at the slag heap and sun

right into their faces

into the round eye of the sun

and the triangular slag heap’s—

and from the shower head onto my wet skin

it’s not rain falling, but snow

in long threads of rays

a gossamer snow of rites of spring songs

that descend from the spider sun

Translated by Michael M. Naydan