And sleepless once when the needle slipped, he could not
say whether it pierced his hand or was at that moment 
born from it, stitching 

Long ago cloisters had the sacred Truth
of Holy Scripture painted on their walls.
These pictures warmed the hearts of men of faith
and eased the chill inside their stringent cells.

I still recall the little whitewashed lodging where
we lived in peace, just off a major thoroughfare.

Have you felt—I have—a pain that you enjoyed?
Do they say about you, too: “How strange he is!”
—I was dying, and a special agony

Remember, my soul, the thing we saw
  that lovely summer day?
On a pile of stones where the path turned off,

Once, indulgent lady—only once
  you lay your lustrous arm
on mine (against the darkness of my soul

Two warriors have engaged in combat: swords
Hash and clash together; blood is spilled.
Such passages of arms are the result

Gentle reader, being—as you are—
a cautious man of uncorrupted tastes,
lay aside this disobliging work,

After my friend and I left the tobacco shop, he carefully sorted his loose change; slipped some small gold coins in his left jacket pocket; into the right went the silver pieces; in his left pants pocket, a handful of centimes; and in the right, a silver two-franc piece he inspected closely. I wondered about this odd distribution of coins.

I am like the king of a rainy kingdom,
rich but weak, young yet very old,