I'll be a passer-by myself. I'll learn

how to get up and lay aside the horror

of night and go out walking as I used to.

I'll apply my mind to work for a time,

I'll go back there, by the window, smoking

and relaxed. But my eyes will be the same,

my gestures too, and my face. That empty secret

that lingers in my body and dulls my gaze

will die slowly to the rhythm of the blood

where everything vanishes.

I'll go out one morning,

I won't have a house any more, I'll go out in the street;

the night's horror will have left me;

I'll be frightened of being alone. But I'll want to be alone.

I'll look at passers-by with the dead smile

of someone who's beaten, but doesn't hate or cry out,

for I know that since ancient times fate -

all that you've been or will ever be - is in the blood,

in the murmur of the blood. I'll wrinkle my brows

alone, in the middle of the street, listening for an echo

in the blood. And there'll be no echo any more,

I'll look up and gaze at the street.