THE OTHER PRECISION

Measure everything well, calculate with precision

the frontiers, the distances;for thus by stopping,by laying out

your ruler on the earth, by thus dedicating yourself to number,

you may-who knows?-forget the frontiers; you may

reveal the great precision, single and self-sufficient,

as, purely by chance, your finger on the earth touches the buckle

from Helen's belt-the one she wore one evening

on the walls, above the disputes of the Achaeans and the Trojans,

while behind her, following ecstatically like fate,

with her eyes half closed, came the black pregnant bitch.