TRANSLATING INTO LOVE LIFE’S END

Since I cannot touch you
with my tongue
I translate my passion.
I cannot communicate
so I transubstantiate;
I cannot undress you
so I dress you with the fantasy
of a foreign tongue.
Under your wings
I cannot nestle
so I fly around you
turning the pages of your dictionary.
I want to know how you strip
how you open up
so 1 look for your habits
in between your lines
for your favourite fruit
your favourite smells
girls you leaf through.
I'll never see your punctuation marks
naked, 1 work hard on your adjectives
so that I can recite them in the susurrations
of another religion.
But my story has aged
my volume adorns no shelf
and I imagine you now
with a rare gold leather binding
in a foreign library.
Because I should never
have indulged in the luxury of nostalgia
and written this poem
I am reading the gray sky now
in a sun-drenched translation.