child sprung from
the two of us — showing
us our ideal, the way
— ours! father
and mother who
sadly existing
survive him as
the two extremes —
badly coupled in him
and sundered
— from whence hi death — o-
bliterating this little child "self"
Copyright © 2005 by Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Auster. From A Tomb for Anatole. Reprinted with permission of New Directions Press.