From “Hearts, Books of Love” [“You wake amid bursts of darkness”]

By Hélène Dorion
Translated By Susanna Lang

Translated from the French

You wake amid bursts of darkness
 
                      you come back from the vast sleep that holds you
                      tighter than my arms, each evening
                      I bare myself and abandon you
                      to the night’s tall grasses.
 
                      The hours that create us
                      separate us, and I give you up
                      until dawn comes to dissolve absence.

Notes:

Read the translator's note by Susanna Lang.