NIGHT, Paul Celan

Gravel and scree. And a shard thud, light

as an hour’s comfort.

Exchange of eyes, wrong-timed, final:
a picture,

chiseled on
the retina –

stigma of eternity.

Thinkable:
up there, on the rails of the world,
starlike,
the red of two mouths.

Hearable (before morning): a stone
that made another its target.