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1 The translator meets himself emerging from his lover’s bedroom So much for fidelity, he thinks 2 Je est un autre, said the translator Try next door 3 The translator was looking down his own throat Come out, come out, wherever you are! he pleaded The translator’s wardrobe was full of other people’s shirts At least they fitted him The translator stood in front of the window pretending to be transparent But if everything is potentially everything else, complained the translator, what am I doing here? The translator was counting his chickens, none of them hatched but already squabbling 4 The translator wanders into Babel and books himself into a cupboard Two languages on the same floor of Babel – I was here first – I’m not talking to you – Keep the music down – You call that music? But the gardens of Babel? Who talks about them? Who planted them? Who tended them? cried the translator in his cups, slurring his words 5 The blind translator had developed his sense of smell to an exquisite pitch He could read books the way a dog reads lampposts The blind translator felt his way through the book, knocking whole sentences over He’d have to build it all again by touch 6 A poet and a translator walk into a bar Give me a beer, says the poet I suppose you’d better give him a beer, says the translator The translator was admiring his dead poets Not that I am alive myself, he remarked, but at least I keep moving Several lungs, several breaths, several sets of teeth, several lips: we are several, says the translator We are several, echoes the poet 7 The Lamentations of the Translator, pondered the translator Dirge? Plaint? Interpreter? Let’s just call it The Giraffe’s Birthday The translator was tracking the bear but kept wondering why the bear was wearing his shoes Bears are thieves, he muttered 8 Two translators meet each other, examine their teeth Whose teeth are those? they ask To meet a roomful