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This poem is taken from PN Review 167, Volume 32 Number 3, January - February 2006.

Two Poems (translated by Marilyn Hacker) Guy Goffette


Cuckoo's Bread

I

Like anywhere else, the sky in Bezons
is up above the rooftops, and few below
bother themselves about the quality of such a
common stuff - except perhaps the old boxer

who can't sleep anymore and broods over
his approaching end at the third-floor window
in the Cité des Lilas while the little
pavilions of mill-dust are one with

memory, forgetfulness, of lean days and
hard bread. That was yesterday and that remains
like a recalled sky, a more

and more patched-over blue: my father
coming home from work, his hands
bare and battered by the flowered plate.


II

What flavour it still keeps here, on the detour
...


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