Seekers after sources and rivers,

messengers of useless desires, traveling

merchants, a spider in its web:

they keep me company this early

evening hour, in the privacy of a groggy soul

who stands and smokes and three kids

sleeping upstairs. In a dream, my years

of devotion grind by, and an image unfolds

less real than I would want. Look at it:

translucent, not the least bit shy, it radiates

like an apparition over desert sands

others have discovered; but all the same it suits me,

so big and unsatisfied, like a monologue

running without a break, it lasts

as long as the pain of harvest grass

when left to rot. Look at me as I tremble,

you cannot miss how I reach for you,

my partner I do not know. Yet you alone

can fix my sight, you’re a welcome

guest in every house, you detect

the failures in my speech, you forgive

the stutter that I am.

—Ales Debeljak

Translated from the Slovenian by Andrew Zawacki and the author

Ales Debeljak is a Slovenian poet, cultural critic, and translator. His most recent poetry books in English are The City and the Child and Dictionary of Silence.