Poem of the Week: “Tightening loosening” by Jacques Dupin

This week’s poem is an excerpt from The Encroaching Murmur by Jacques Dupin. Originally written in French, the poem has been translated by Paul Auster. In these lyrics, the narrator addresses a woman perceived to be trapped in the recurring expectations of every day—a cyclical lifestyle that only continues to roll over the same ground, mimicking the action of a wagon wheel.

“Tightening loosening”

Tightening loosening
on the restored tracks

without entirely freeing herself as woman
from the vague bestiary that besets her

among so many pious incantations
driven into morning
the mud’s soliloquy 

rolls and grows

pale usurper she sleeps and hates me
I have neglected her poverty
she holds herself a little higher

unbounded shadow of a wagon wheel
heavily alive on the wall

–Jacques Dupin, translated by Paul Auster, from Selected Poems (1992)