Orphan Absence , by Vasko Popa

You didn't have a real father

The day you first saw the world within you

Your mother was not at home

It was a mistake you were born

Built like an empty gorge

You smell of absence

Alone you gave birth to yourself

You fidget with rags on fire

Break your heads one after the other

Jump in and out of your mouths

To give youth back to your old mistake

Bend down naked if you can

Down to my last letter

And follow its track

It seems to me my little orphans

That it leads

Into some sort of presence

part of "Heaven's Ring"

Translated from the Serbian by Charles Simic

The Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry 196-197