Author: coemaster
Company: UofO

Anne Born

     TRANSLATION

is a tour of a new world,
no space trip, stranger: a mirror land 
where you must live a ‘volte face’
through a series of shifting 
images: known letters patterned 
to other word shapes, hieroglyphs 
into thoughts impossibly like 
your thoughts.  A double-take 
of time, as you write now 
what he or she wrote then. A guest, 
you must move with care and courtesy 
through a mind's furniture, use all 
his rooms as he's designed them, 
follow the rules for his interior plan.

Then return ‘chez vous’, fold up 
your telescope, start to recreate 
the structure with your own 
material and tools.

You can't transport it lock, stock, barrel, as found, 
it must be rebuilt on your own ground.

   ____________ 

   Reference: Terminologie, n^o 34, 1979, p. 33.