Love died in your arms.
Do you remember meeting him?
He died, you will repeat that.
He returns to meet you.

Another springtime ended.
I think about the tender parts of it.
Farewell, season finishing,
you will return to us just as tender.

In the faded twilight
where several loves jostle,
your memory lies in chains
far from our shadows which step back.

Oh hands linked together by memory
and burning like a pyre
where the last of the phoenixes - black
perfection - comes to perch.

The chain wears down link by link.
Your memory laughing at us
flees (can you hear it mocking us?)
and I fall again at your feet.

You have not surprised my secret.
Already the procession advances.
But we still have the regret
of not being truly in league.

The rose floats in the water,
the maskers have passed by in groups.
Trembling in me like a little bell
is the heavy secret you seek.

The evening falls and in the garden
the women are telling stories 
to the night which somewhat disdainfully
spreads out their dark tresses.

Little children, little children,
your wings have not yet flown away,
but you, a self-protective rose,
are losing your unique fragrances.

For now is the hour for petty theft
of feathers, of flowers, of hair.
Go pick the fountain in the pool
whose roses are mistresses.

You would descend into the water so clear.
I would drown in your gaze.
The soldier passes, the woman leans out,
and turns away and breaks a branch.

You float on the nocturnal wave.
The flame is my heart upside down,
the colour of the tortoiseshell comb
reflected by the water that bathes you.

Oh my abandoned youth,
like a withered garland,
now here comes the season
of disdain and suspicion.

The landscape is made of cloth.
A false river of blood is flowing,
and under the tree that blossoms with stars
a clown is the only passer-by.

A cold ray makes dust-clouds and plays
on the decors and on your cheek.
A revolver shot. A cry
in the shadow. A portrait has smiled.

The glass of the frame is broken.
An air that one cannot define
wavers between sound and thought,
between future and memory.

Oh my abandoned youth,
like a withered garland,
now here comes the season
of regrets and reason.