Today I need to clarify the kind of success my dreams are, and I say success because lying down with someone new, in places as unexpected, as repugnant as, for example, a kitchen or a museum gallery, shows me the limits of life, leaving me nothing to endure but death.
A very young, deeply unhappy woman having the twilight beauty of those who give themselves over, surrender themselves, only to lose the other. Having the twilight beauty of those whose innocence is absolute, not measuring what they’ve lived, or what remains to live. She’s there for me, me and the innocence I haven’t lost, since I sleep, since I’m at the mercy of a love that isn’t new, but eternal, my master, from the birth to the death of night.
Vows without reason, everything already sworn. No more worries. Serious without worries, without vows. We don’t laugh, because we don’t have to defend ourselves. We love each other among the waste of waking life: classrooms, quarrels, menacing money, the usual personalities, the kitchen, the table, work, journeys, clothes. Even nakedness doesn’t dazzle us, we don’t have to keep the light from disturbing itself any more, to keep the gray sky from turning blue. This girl I discover while falling asleep, like a black star in the oblivion of day, only knows about herself what I ignore about myself. Her soft flesh responds with pleasure to my touch, but only as much as her virtue allows. Neither wins, nor loses, nor risks, nor is certain. The will is no longer a mask removed, or eyes that open. She doesn’t ask me to abdicate or hold on. I’m delivered, truly delivered, to the reality of a mirror that doesn’t reflect my likeness. Delivered to her desires. I believe I’m the prey. Without yesterday or the day after. This pure face begins again.
The greatest day of my life, always.
Paul Éluard (1895-1952), an integral member of the French Surrealist movement, published over 30 poetry collections, often in collaboration with other poets or artists. During WWI he dug graves and wrote letters to families of soldiers killed in action. A French Communist Party member, in WWII he worked for the Resistance. After the war, he embraced the cause of peace.
Ross Belot's latest poetry collection, Moving to Climate Change Hours, was published in 2020. The recipient of a Canada Council for the Arts grant, he's been both long and short listed for the CBC Poetry Prize, and his poems appear in numerous journals. He lives in Hamilton, Ontario.
Sara Burant is the grateful recipient of a 2023 Oregon Literary Arts Fellowship. Her poems and reviews appear both online and in print. She lives in Eugene, Oregon with an attentive red heeler named Penn.
