Place du Jeu de Balle, Brussels

And there will never be a time

When we will go down in the darkness,

Waiting until the platform clears

To open the stiff doors of the last tram

To Silence, lifting our failing feet

And unwillingly replacing them

Until we reach that square of dispersals,

To see our own lives laid out

On the cobbles for the scavengers.

We will never weep to see our pathetic

Trophies laid out on newspaper,

Turned over by the toe of profit

Or still heaped in their cartons of haulage

Where nothing is thought to be beautiful

That cannot survive its ownership.

The things we liked are like the things

We did, kept by us and remembered,

But imperfect to the judicious eye.

Weaknesses like photographs,

Faces instinctively lifted towards

A supposed immortality.

Wounded plates preserved in the uniform

Of their fortunate brothers, loved music

Cheapened by pencil and blackened corners.

The things that are only what they pretend

To be for as long as one pays them attention:

Paper flowers, magazine parts.

Objects that tease by confusing the appetites:

The mammary jelly-mould, the mannekin

Corkscrew, the can-can casse-noisette.

The trophies from foreign shores and occasions:

The coloured sand, the Exhibition

Mug, the aluminium amulet.

What has always been said is also

True: you can't take it with you.

So let us establish a useful countdown

Like eating the contents of the fridge

Before departure, to the last undated

Egg, saved rice and dwindled caper.

Such were a satisfying meal,

Though frugal, and appropriate

To the condemned prisoners we are.

All these objects that we believe

Define us: they ache already with

Our love, and their forgottenness.