Reversal

“Poet, read your poem,” they said,

“so that the world would finally reverse

like a head under the lamp,

so that at last that name would be spelled

whose ignorance blinds us.”

Then, he, opening the book,

saw that the pages had become white.

Guy Goffette, Belgium (1947)

Translation Germain Droogenbroodt – Stanley Barkan

from « Eloge pour une cuisine de province »