Mistranslating Rimbaud

Jane Flett

Mistranslating Rimbaud
on the Northern Line,
in the back alleyway cobbled death streets of Pere Lachaise,
along the swaying stuttering riverbanks,
wine sodden
and terrible.

sir, when it is cold in the desert
when, in the dripping abattoirs,
the sometime angels are with you…
nature will deflower
all arbitrary and huge acts
the precious, cornered, and delicious

This, with too much sunshine for November,
clutching coffee cups which make a mockery of scale.

This, an impulse which can be taken home
to the grey-building, Lemsip streets
to line the herbal-tea, double-duvet winter
and make it through
till spring.