NAKED FACE

Cut the lemon and let two drops fall into glass;

look there, the knives beside the fish on the table─

the fish are red, the knives are black.

All with a knife between their teeth or up their sleeves, thrust in their

boots or their breeches.

The two women have gone crazy, they want to eat the men,

they have large black fingernails, they comb their unwashed hair

high up. High up like towers, from which the five boys

plunge down one by one. Afterward they come down the stairs,

draw water from the well, wash themselves, spread out their thighs,

thrust in pine cones, thrust in stones. And we

nod our heads with a “yes”and a “yes” ─we look down

at an ant, a locust, or on the statue of Victory─

Pine tree caterpillars saunter on her wings.

The lack of holiness─someone said─is the final, the worst kind of

knowledge；

it’s exactly such knowledge that now remains to be called holy.