TO MAX MORISE - by Robert Desnos

TO MAX MORISE

Chicago
The trams make a noise like doughnut batter
dropped in oil.
In the prairie there's a cowboy:
He bursts the stars with revolver shots to eternalize the birth of his son.
Hidden behind a carob tree he sleeps
the pirate of the forgotten savanna in a novel by Gustave
Aymard.
In the Chicago prison there's a consumptive assassin three women with white hands with enamel eyes a doctor with tortoise shell glasses a clergyman shaved with a star razor nurse him
Courage! said the three women with white hands
Courage! said the doctor with tortoise shell glasses
Tomorrow he can get up
Courage repeated the clergyman shaved with the star razor
Tomorrow he can get up
and when he can get up
he’ll be taken to get himself electrocuted.

Robert Desnos, translated by Amy Levin