我知道底部，她说。我用巨大的主根探知：

I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root.

这正是你所畏惧的。

It is what you fear.

但我并不怕：我曾到过那里。

I do not fear it: I have been there.

你从我身上听到的可是海声，

Is it the sea you hear in me,

它的不满？

Its dissatisfactions?

或者是空无的声音，那是你的疯狂？

Or the voice of nothing, that was your madness?

爱是一抹阴影。

Love is a shadow.

你在它的背后躺卧呼喊。

How you lie and cry after it.

听：这是蹄音：它远离了，像一匹马。

Listen: these are its hooves: it has gone off, like a horse.

整个晚上我将如是奔驰，狂烈地，

All night I shall gallop thus, impetuously,

直把你的头跑成石块，你的枕成一方小小的赛马场，

Till your head is a stone, your pillow a little turf,

回响，回响。

Echoing, echoing.

或者要我带给你毒药的响声？

Or shall I bring you the sound of poisons?

下雨了，这硕大的寂静。

This is rain now, this big hush.

而这是它的果实：锡白，如砷。

And this is the fruit of it: tin-white, like arsenic.

我饱尝落日的暴行。

I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets.

焦灼直达根部

Scorched to the root

我红色的灯丝烧断而仍坚持着，一团铁丝。

My red filaments burn and stand, a hand of wires.

现在我分解成碎片，棍棒般四处飞散。

Now I break up in pieces that fly about like clubs.

如此猛烈的狂风

A wind of such violence

绝不能忍受他人的旁观；我得嘶喊。

Will tolerate no bystanding: I must shriek.

月亮也同样的无情：总是残酷地

The moon, also, is merciless: she would drag me

拖曳着我，我已不能生育。

Cruelly, being barren.

她的强光刺伤了我。或许是我绊住了她。

Her radiance scathes me. Or perhaps I have caught her.

我放她走。我放她走。

I let her go. I let her go

萎缩而扁平，像经历了剧烈的手术。

Diminished and flat, as after radical surgery.

你的恶梦如是地攫取占有我。

How your bad dreams possess and endow me.

哭喊在我身上定居。

I am inhabited by a cry.

每晚鼓翼而出

Nightly it flaps out

用它的钓钩，去寻找值得爱的事物。

Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.

我被这黑暗的东西吓坏了

I am terrified by this dark thing

它就躺在我的体内。

That sleeps in me;

我整天都能感觉到它轻柔如羽的翻动，它的憎恶。

All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.

云朵飘散而过。

Clouds pass and disperse.

那些是爱的面庞吗，那些苍白、不可复得的？

Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables?

我就是因为这些而乱了心绪吗？

Is it for such I agitate my heart?

我无法进一步知晓。

I am incapable of more knowledge.

这是什么，这张脸

What is this, this face

如是凶残地扼杀枝干？──

So murderous in its strangle of branches?—

它蛇阴的酸液嘶嘶作响。

Its snaky acids kiss.

麻木了意志。这些是隔离，徐缓的过失

It petrifies the will. These are the isolate, slow faults

足可置人于死，死，死。

That kill, that kill, that kill.