Paul Celan

23 November 1920 - 20 April 1970 / (Cernăuţi, Bukovin) Chernivtsi, Ukraine

When You Lie

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.
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