When You Lie

By Paul Celan

When you lie

in the Bed of lost Flag-Cloth,

with blue-black Syllables, in Snow-Eyelash-Shadow,

the Crane through Thought-

showers,

comes gliding, steely-

you open for him.

His beak ticks the Hour for you

at every Mouth – at every

bell-stroke, with red-hot Rope, a Silent-

Millennium,

Un-Pulse and Pulse

mint each other to death,

the Dollars, the Cents,

rain hard through your Pores,

in

Second-Shapes

you fly there and bar

the Doors Yesterday and Tomorrow – phosphorescent,

Forever-Teeth,

buds the one, and buds the

other breast,

towards the Grasping, under

the Thrusts –: so thick,

so deeply

strewn

the starry

Crane-

Seed.