Widow

    The first day after his death

    she folded up her mirrors

    put a slipcover on the spider web

    then tied up the bed which was flapping its wings to take off

    The second day after his death

    she filled up her pockets with wood chips

    threw salt over the shoulder of her house

    and went off with a tree under each arm

    The third day after his death

    she swore at the pigeons lined up along her tears

    bit into a grape which scattered² its down in her throat

    then called out till sunset to the man gone barefoot

    into the summer pasture in the cloudy mountains

    The fourth day

    a herd³ of buffalo⁴ barged into her bedroom

    demanding the hunter who spoke⁵ their dialect

    she shouldered her cry

    shot off a round

    which pierced the ceiling of her sleep

    The fifth day

    shoe-soles of blood imprinted⁶ themselves on her doorstep

    she followed them to that ditch where everything smells of boned hare

    The sixth day after his death

    she painted her face with earth

    attacked the peaceful shadows of passers-by

    slit⁷ the throats of trees

    their colorless blood evaporated when it touched her hands

    The seventh day

    stringy men sprouted⁸ in her garden

    she mistook them for poplars

    bit the armpits of their branches

    and lengthily⁹ vomited¹⁰ wood-chips

    The eighth day

    the sea whinnied at her door

    she washed her belly's embankments

    then called down to the river's mouth

    where men clashed together like pebbles¹¹

    The ninth day

    she dried her tears on the roof between the basil and the budding fog

    gazed at herself in stones

    found cracks in her eyes like those in a church's stained glass

    The tenth day

    he surged up out of her palm

    sat down on her fingernail

    demanded her usual words to drink and the almond odor of her knees.

    He swallowed them without pleasure

    on his journey he'd lost the taste for tortured water