This year the arsonist burns his own room.
If the lilac blooms, it has its reasons.

I must confess to everything.

The lighthouse as an image
of loneliness has its limits.

For as we stand on the shore

In the diner the busboy counts the empty stools and looks at his reflection in the coffee urns. On the radio the announcer says the allies have won another victory. There have been few casualties.

It's all talk isn't it, emblem
and suggestion, it's either tremulous stutter
or taunting display: flashy but fleshless, a con man

When you unzip your dress
a thousand insects run for cover,

What is so strange about Desnos is that he says he is not afraid of going crazy, of dying, or even of the Nazis who are always watching him.

I support the animals’ urge to survive.
So much for opinions. Slithering, writhing,
nosing my way through dirt, I can identify
with that. I joke to keep the system going.

The sun is very hot. Why is it no one complains of the heat in France?

My thesis concerns the quantification of desire: what constitutes a unit of passion, what represents a significant change in body heat? Think of all the love given out without counting: to the mistress of a man who sleeps in a bed separate from his wife, whose business interests weigh heavily upon him.