The mountain’s take-no-prisoners hump,

山上那寸草不留的峰丘，

seen from the second-floor window

透过窗户看去，让我恶心不适，

of the X-ray clinic, over late-day traffic,

在这X光诊所二楼，下面是

sickens me, a lightness that goes all

一日将尽时的车流，有一种轻

the way in.

沿路涌来。

Just above traffic, gravelly air,

车流之上，空气含着沙砾，

                                  a sluggish creek.

                             一条小溪慵懒。

These dismemberments, which, it is

这些肢解的碎片，据说是

said, are leaves falling, the wind shifting.

树叶纷落，山风变幻。

The mountain puts strangeness sickness on me

大山将陌生感的不适套到我身上，

untranslatable to prednisone.

不可转化为肾上素。

Here its 9,000-year-old name

这儿有它萨尼奇语的名字，九千岁了，

in SENĆOŦEN I have in a tight winding of light,

存在于光的密集线圈中，

the hard tip of our relations. Day by day

我们的关系露出的硬顶。日复一日，

I look at the mountain and walk and groom it (tearing out

我遥看那座山，一边走一边梳理它（拔掉

ivy and Scotch broom) and think in a small, single-occupant

常春藤和金雀花），想着乘坐一只单人小艇

craft toward the middle of its galactic mass

驶向它体量如星系的中心，我相信

where I believe the will to sit across a minute cocktail table

那里有一股意志，令我坐在一张小鸡尾酒桌前，

from me in a film from the early 1940s

面对1940年代一部电影中的我，

and receive looks from me through its drinking face

接受我的目光从那张喝水的脸上

exists, cleaning its paws.

传来，清洁它的爪子。

I would bitch at it and deliciously

我会对它唧唧歪歪，有滋有味地

gossip and cook up schemes.

八卦，胡吹各种诡计。

This morning I considered the hideous gravity –

今天早晨，我思忖那可怕的重力——

swift black timing chain in necessity’s

宿命机器的黑色计时链

machine churning through objects’ teeth – was the real visage

迅捷地扭拧穿过物体的牙齿——这才是

of the beautiful friend.

美丽朋友的真面容。

Yes, but how then breathe?

是的，但是怎么呼吸呢？