Day 49

Interior Fantasy

You would be quarantined. You’d have for company a crowd of young 
people, beautiful and learned, populating your home, walking
their half-dressed supple bodies in the apartment
Their soft skin brushing yours in the hallways.
 
Each one would grow languid, lean nonchalantly 
on door frames, slouch in the dust settling on the oak floor, doze off on the sofa. They’d take baths in water lukewarm and scented by the old enamel bathtub,
would leave their humours blend into their humours
Their smooth limbs and beautiful naked faces would reflect
into the old stained mirrors
which sit atop your cold fireplaces.
 
Some would look melancholically at the street, always 
more empty, through the bow windows of your room….
And they’d be quiet, sigh, hide in the thick
curtains, red and heavy
likely velour
And you, reigning among them, superb and radiant
 
You tell me no.
So you are alone, like always.
It is only a whim.
My imagination.
 
Of course of course a fantasy. You yourself exist so little.

Judith Soria, french version here