de Les gestes de la neige

Au centre du monde

se situait la fourche amoureuse

du cou, ta clavicule

métaphysique

En nidification

je suis venue me poser

sur l’amoureux embranchement

de ta poitrine

ta poitrine de coudrier croisé

arbre souple d’étoiles

où volent les colombes

ta poitrine de croisé

---

from The Gestures of Snow

In the center of the world

was love’s fork

at the neck, your metaphysical

clavicle

Nesting

I came to light myself

on love’s branch

in your chest

your chest of crossed hazel

soft tree of stars

where doves fly

your chest of crossings

---

de Les gestes de la neige

je réinventerai les premiers

mots de neige

et notre enfance au long sable

des plages

l’étoile s’éclabousse au fond

des lacs glacés

*

l’amour réinvente les signes de ta neige

le corps est mon amour de neige bleu

la neige mon amour

et réinvente les signes de la neige

la neige réinvente les signes de neige

---

from The Gestures of Snow

I will reinvent the first

words of snow

and our childish days across sand

of beaches

stars splashing down

beneath frozen lakes

*

love rewrites your snow’s signals

the body is my blue snow love

snow my love

it reinvents snow’s signals

snow rewrites its own signals

---

BÉATRICE BONHOMME (author) is a poet, literary critic, magazine editor, and professor at the Université Côte d'Azur. In 2016, she was awarded the Léopold Sédar Senghor Prize by the Cénacle Européen; and in June 2019, she received the Venus Khoury Ghata Prize for her collection Dialogue avec l’anonyme (Collodion, 2018). In 1994, she founded the review Nu(e), a poetry and art journal that has devoted seventy-five issues to contemporary poetry and now appears online at POEZIBAO. Bonhomme directs La Société des lecteurs de Pierre Jean Jouve and has edited many volumes on poetry with the Centre culturel international de Cerisy. Her most recent poetry collections are Les Boxeurs de l’absurde (L’Etoile des limites, 2019) and Proses écorchées au fil noir (Collodion, 2020). Le mot, la mort, l’amour, a collection of writings on her work, was published by Peter Lang (2012).

EMELIE GRIFFIN (translator) is a poet and editor from Florida. She is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Houston.

Return to Online Exclusives