You wake amid bursts of darkness
you come back from the vast sleep that holds you
tighter than my arms, each evening
I bare myself and abandon you
to the night’s tall grasses.
The hours that create us
separate us, and I give you up
until dawn comes to dissolve absence.From “Hearts, Books of Love” [“You wake amid bursts of darkness”], Hélène Dorion, Translated from the French by Susanna Lang
