TOW

For Sam:

In the hall, stillness and attention. I am both listening and reading, hearing and seeing for the frist time the text I have pledged to render into English. Between ears and eyes, but also on the tongue and to the touch, the enveloping sensation of the untranslatable. A sensation, yes, and not just a matter for reflection, not just a teasing of thought into the space between idioms -- hers and his and mine. That will come too, later, but first a sensation, tingling, stinging, better yet: burning (Kamuf "Afterburn: An Afterword to "The Flying Manuscript" 47).