A Precise Woman

A precise woman with a short haircut brings order

to my thoughts and my dresser drawers,

moves feelings around like furniture

into a new arrangement.

A woman whose body is cinched at the waist and firmly divided

into upper and lower,

with weather-forecast eyes

of shatterproof glass.

Even her cries of passion follow a certain order,

one after the other:

tame dove, then wild dove,

then peacock, wounded peacock, peacock, peacock,

the wild dove, tame dove, dove dove

thrush, thrush, thrush.

A precise woman: on the bedroom carpet

her shoes always point away from the bed.

(My own shoes point toward it.)

Translated by Chana Bloch