"Come the Sabbath," an elegy

From the bridge

stone, from which

he bounded over in-

to life, fledged

by wounds—from

the Pont Mirabeau.

         Paul Celan, trans. John Felstiner

Seven days before

you let yourself

into the Seine: twelve last

lines of German like

an iceberg you bore

down until springs

welled. In the emergency

of it not

lying. Breaths as if of

shattered glass throughout

air like snow, seven

days you un-

rested from making & then

didn't swim. What

lifetimes with dead

ones rushing under

arched stones of your

surviving had you

stayed? Even wreathed

with hertz you kept

making lines like

eyes looking through

us. Who

didn't abandon you?

Here in this drowning

there are no

more days

of rest for you.

Unmothered

your tongue—you

took the coal

out. Off a

bridge you could

no longer stay on

you paced, closer to

closed mouths you

couldn't not

speak for. I read it

was probably at Pont

Mirabeau which is also

a poem saying

goodbye love.

Dan Alter is the author of two collections of poetry: My Little Book of Exiles (Eyewear, 2002) winner of the Cowan Poetry Prize, and Hills Full of Holes (Fernwood, 2025). He is also the translator of Take a Breath, You’re Getting Excited (Ben Yehuda, 2024), from the Hebrew of Yakir Ben-Moshe. He works at the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at UC Berkeley.