Yesterday Summer
by Olivier Delfin
1
Feet planted in the water
You suppress a sigh and rub your eyes open
to the sparkling copper-silver of the stream.
The draining steps that brought you here
disperse among the rocks and slimy mosses.
Grass snake of languid curves,
You slide out, burning,
On the stones.
You sprawl there
Smitten by the rumbling day, its bites.
The earth shudders and you return to your thoughts
Still full of nothing.
2
Just so, just yesterday the summer browsed
Your hips, your mouth and the threads of your hair
In a sunny embrace.
An exquisite humming
Arose in your throat
A surfeit of palace murmurs
Where endlessly your name spilled out.
3
Feet planted in water,
You suppress a sigh.
Embraces warm and pointless...
You tremble now at this proud listlessness;
They already amassed such mist,
Planned so many deserts,
You cannot quell their abrupt vertigo,
For they have covered the steps with sand
And hushed the voice
Of the man named Spouse.