No tears. You can’t entreat this feeling
to come forth, to lift above your oesophagus and
turn to fluid grief. Your tongue is chalk and the air,
the reverberating crystal of a wine glass someone rubs
a wet thumb along, a hum whose colour eclipses
these thin conversations about sex poorly disguised
as cultivated desire. This all takes place at a party
constantly played-out in some future time you have
invented, where your present needs have been replaced
by deep-seated and trivial regrets. Your guests
wear the occult glow of the well-fed and spiritually
tormented. What no one sees: In the mirror above
the bookshelf where the Poetical Works of Keats decomposes
to blonde motes of dust, a shadow grows of your body
as it appears today, as dark water light gutters over
from a moon made of salt, a moon of fear, a hollow
form the night runs its cold thumb along—
as a single violin plays its single note
across the years.
he reverberating crystal of a wine glass someone rubs
是沾湿的拇指摩擦高脚杯发出的回响
a wet thumb along, a hum whose colour eclipses
是一种低吟，竟掩盖了那些轻浮的谈话
these thin conversations about sex poorly disguised
笨拙地将性伪装成高尚的欲望
"Fin-De-Siècle" by Chris Hutchinson
