I do not come tonight to possess your body, o beast

To whom go the sins of a people, nor to dig

In your impure hair a sad storm

Under an incurable boredom that sheds my kiss: 

I ask your bed for the heavy sleep without dreams

Smoothing under the unknown curtains of remorse

And that you can taste after your black lies

You who know more about the void than the dead do 

For Vice, gnawing my native nobility,

Has marked me, like you, with its infertility

But since your stony breast is inhabited 

By a heart which the tooth of crime does not hurt

I run away, pale, undone, haunted by my shroud

Being afraid to die when I sleep alone

03/16/08