Two Poems (translated by Marilyn Hacker)

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
...