Love
Two thousand cigarettes.A hundred miles
from wall to wall.
An eternity and a half of vigils
blanker than snow.
Tons of words
old as the tracks
of a platypus in the sand.
A hundred books we didn’t write
A hundred pyramids we didn’t build.
Sweepings.
Dust.
Bitter
as the beginning of the world.
Believe me when I say
it was beautiful.
Miroslav Holub, translated from Czech by Ian Milner