Overture

BLACK
like memory’s wound,
the eyes grub toward you
in a Crowland bitten
bright by heart’s teeth-
it remains our bed:

through this shaft you must come-
you come.

in the seed’s
sense
the sea stars you out, innermost, forever.

an end to the granting of names,
over you I cast my fate.

-Paul Celan (from the collection Breathturn, translated by John Felstiner)