Afterglow (J.L.B., trans. E.A.C.)

It is always moving,
the indigent and rustic decline,
but more touching always
is that bright and final desperation
that rusts the plain when the sun has set.
It pains us to bear this inflexible and clear light,
this hallucination that asserts in space
the unanimous fear of darkness
and that like a blow, ceases when we notice its fallacy
like the ending of dreams
when we realize we are dreaming.