Nagase Kiyoko / 永瀬清子 – Ⅰ

Daughter of a Constellation 

 

 

 

 

The loves of people who press close

late at night

make up parts of my flesh and body.

The soul flows through them

and I feel bound down

like the mythical daughter of giant heaven’s space

who’s nailed to heaven with rivets of stars.

 

The stars at night

are minerals polished from primordial times

by eyes turned on them from an earth pregnant with countless fates.

Having attracted joys and sorrows

from the north, from the south,

they’re laden with heavy expectations.

 

Left by myself,

I am someone who flies easily,

But stabbed by those stars

I feel like a camellia pregnant with many buds.

 

Floating up in me through the dark night,

its intensity about to bloom, filled with honey, pains me.

 

Heaviness of the blood congestion of the stars!

Which gravity shall I submit myself to?

Where am I reeling to?

When night condenses second by second,

will not the mythical daughter of heaven

try to sever silver-frilled ropes between stars

taut for hundreds of millions of years

and to will to hang from space

intently as a blue spider—

cleaving her cold self

from many sickly loving kindnesses,

trusting only gravity

like a weight downward! Downward!