CLEARCUT
by Julio Cortazar
(translated from the Spanish by Stephen Kessler)

Take away these eyes, little colored stones,
This totem of a nose, these lips that know
all the multiplication tables and a fine selection of poems.
I give you my whole face, tongue and hair included,
I'll rip out my nails and teeth to complete the package.

These ways of feeling
won't do. Neither the eyes nor the fingers.
Nor those warmed-up leftovers, memories,
nor kindness, like an evil little parakeet.
Take the inductive reasonings and the racks
where the washed and ironed words are hanging.
Ransack the whole house, everything out,
leave me like a hole or a stump.

Possibly then, when God, that Boy Scout,
and his benevolence are worthless to me,
and I'm no better than some rug that's put up
with its steady drizzle of shoes for eighty years
and there's nothing left but the warp, a see-through skeleton
whose silver peacocks have been worn away,

it could be, without my voice, I'll be able to say your name,
it could happen, without my hands, I'll be able to reach your waist.