Cities & Eyes 5

When you have forded the river,
when you have crossed the mountain pass,
you suddenly find before you
the city of Moriana,

its alabaster gates
transparent in the sunlight,

its coral columns supporting
pediments encrusted with serpentine,

its villas all of glass like aquariums
where the shadows of dancing girls
with silvery scales swim beneath
the medusa-shaped chandeliers.

If this is not your first journey,

you already know
that cities like this have an obverse:

you have only to walk a semi-circle and
you will come into view of
Moriana's hidden face,
an expanse of rusting sheet metal,
sackcloths, planks bristling with spikes,
pipes black with soot, piles of tins,
behind walls with fading signs,
frames of staved-in straw chairs,
ropes good only for hanging oneself from a rotten beam.


From one part to the other,

the city seems to continue,

in perspective,

multiplying its repretory of images:

but instead it has no thickness,
it consists only of a face and an obverse,
like a sheet of paper,
with a figure on either side,
which can neither be

separated

nor look at each other.