Who is it who boasts in the night
and at the same time as he insults,
he demands peace in the name of a loved one
silence, who is it, you ask, I ask,
who is that tumult of swearing,
without calm, without restraint?
For once, after invocation, woman soft
as a plum, in the only love, in heat,
for once, let me answer you, answer me:
we are before Nobody, one who points
to Polyphemus' eye, Ulysses swoops up? down?
Someone that cracks
a sharpened joke to break the silence
here in the only place where I love you.
And in a while, as you see, he's the one who insults
from within, and unexpectedly, he's the one
who strokes your hair tenderly, and then he is
a key, an eye, dark and magical,
a touch that you desire. When he is forgotten,
he will continue being the one who dictated this poem.
Where They Do Not Love, 1974