Walking Around

I get tired of being a man.
I walk into tailor shops and movie theaters
Withered, impenetrable, like a felt swan
Drifting in waters of origin and ash.

The smell of barbershops makes me cry out loud.
I just want a break from stones or wool,
I just want to not see stores or gardens,
No merchandise, no glasses, no elevators.

I get tired of my feet and my nails
And my hair and my shadow.
I get tired of being a man.

Yet it would be delightful
To scare a notary with a cut lily
Or to kill a nun with a slap.
It would be beautiful
To walk the streets with a green knife
And scream until I freeze to death.

I don’t want to keep being a root in the darkness,
Wavering, stretched out, shivering with sleep,
Downward, in the wet guts of the earth,
Absorbing and thinking, eating every day.

I don’t want so many misfortunes for myself.
I don’t want to continue as a root and a grave,
Alone in the underground, in a cellar with the dead
Chilled, dying of sorrow.

That’s why Monday burns like oil
When it sees me arrive with my prison face,
And howls in its course like a wounded wheel,
And takes hot blood steps into the night.

And it pushes me to certain corners, to certain damp houses,
To hospitals where bones stick out the window,
To certain shoe stores smelling of vinegar,
To terrifying streets like cracks.

There are sulfur-colored birds and horrible intestines
Hanging from the doors of the houses I hate,
There are forgotten dentures in a coffee pot,
There are mirrors
That should have cried out of shame and horror,
There are umbrellas everywhere, and poisons, and belly buttons.
I stroll calmly, with eyes, with shoes,
With fury, with forgetfulness,
I pass, I cross offices and orthopedic shops,
And courtyards where clothes hang from a wire:
Underwear, towels, and shirts that weep
Slow, dirty tears.