Sarah Sloat

Naked, Come Shivering

Not wanting anything to die of hunger,
the whole town has come into my room,
with the pretty girls and with the old bastards,
the statue of Lautreamont,

the smoke rings of fancy cigars,
all the bodies recovered in the field of showers.
Some jump on horses and give chase–
already the world is far behind.

What do I care for the fragrant ring of mountains?
Night after night it’s a holiday.
If it rains I will have a wife;
she will never close her eyes.

And staggering by the bar,
the miser has opened his coffer–
come into my arms; sit on my lap,
my wife whose shoulders are champagne.

Sit down, Calamity,
wheat of the things of the world.

Roger Giroux “Naked” (Title)/Pierre Reverdy “Waterfall”/Philippe Soupault “Horizon”/Jacques Prevert “Pater Noster”/André Breton “Lethal Relief”/Robert Desnos “The Voice of Robert Desnos”/Pierre Reverdy “Clear Winter”/Blaise Cendrars “Sputterings”/Philippe Denis “Already”/Jules Supervielle “What Do I Care”/René Daumal “Sad Little Round of Life”/Benjamin Péret “Song in Time of Drought”/Paul Éluard “Lady Love”/Jacques Prévert “And the Fete Continues”/Jean Follain “End of a Century”/Valery Larbaud “Music after Reading”/André Breton “Free Union”/Henri Michaux “Repose in Calamity”/Yves Bonnefoy “Utmost Hour”

Sarah Sloat grew up in New Jersey, and has since lived in Kansas, Italy, China, and Philadelphia. For the past 15 years she’s lived in Germany, where she works for a news agency. Sarah has poems forthcoming in Opium, Barn Owl, and Bateau. Among her favorite poets are Vasko Popa and Norman Dubie.