Confession

 

Under the terrestrial skin
dreams the peel of the potato.
Like a merchant of curdled milk
the time passes.
I have often encountered death:
my parents brought it deniers
that it might buy itself clothes.
Among the rocks, ardently, in flashes,
mankind searches out civilizations.
I have often encountered mankind.

 

Ion Caraion
tr. after the French of Georges-Emmanuel Clancier