Michèle Métail Poems

tracks, trips, rumble rimmed
in steel rails and grey, ties
continuous course of ballast
rolling and unwinding on curves
...

danger of wear and tear, leave stranger
thanks to sudden favor, irruption
looked out after perspectives
by doorway where these petrified
...

where from a train ready to depart
arrives laminar crossing stretched
over the said-town's long course
its name, the appropriate travel term
...

on the map, town's flattening
you are here, in the empty circle
encircled, red and carmine circle
image of hypotheses projected
...

from map where this place disappears
first vertically with dimensions
by pieces bringing to face standing
in space made heavy by volumes
...

according to the line of a parcelling
axe around which to the east the west
only there, as if coming and going
without rotation, this same move
...

here, you are here, votive site
temporary in desemboweled town
undesirable in the closed space
of obstructions and its limits
...

at the pedestal of lustre, bronze
and pediments, headline
the commemoration page, oppressing
maze of scrambled memories
...

we would like to escape, to detach
to look backlit, anonymous
behind their anatomic mask
crowd of unmarked faces
...

as soon as surviving the open sky
of day, night opposing light
though precarious, the effect touches on
a circular look around, noting
...