She was almost my first woman and I wanted to call her Eve.
She called me Peugeot because for her I was 306.
There were a several years between us, with her in the lead, and until then
I had never taken a lift from anyone who hadn’t stopped for me.
We stood next to the fence of the agricultural school and beneath
our feet we could hear
the water in the irrigation pipes telling sweet
secrets to the earth.
“If you plant a horseshoe here,” she said, “within a year
a colt will grow.” “And if,” I replied, “you plant a fan here –
within a minute Marilyn Monroe’s flying dress will sprout.”
A second later her lips began to crumble like sand
and her tongue curled over my face
like the remains of a wave.
At that moment the world split into those who closed their eyes
and those who beat the drums on the parade grounds
of the sunset.
Therefore I did not see how the wheels of the tractor
that passed nearby whipped the waters of the puddles
and how like flying kisses the mud shrapnel sprayed
over the muscles of the clouds that had been condemned that evening
to push the sun
into the sea.
Translated by Vivian Eden