I TURN every corner of every street every day,
And whenever I'm thinking of one thing, I'm thinking of another.
I don't confirm except by atavism,
And unless one is bedridden there's always a reason to emigrate.

From every sidewalk café of every city
Accessible to the imagination
I look at life passing by, watching without getting involved,
Belonging to it without pulling a gesture out of my pocket
And without noting down what I see to pretend later on that I saw it.

The definite wife of someone rides by in the yellow car,
And I'm sitting next to her although she doesn't know it.
On the sidewalk they run into each other by a planned coincidence,
And before they were there I was already there with them.
There is no way they can avoid finding me, no way I won't be everywhere.
My privilege is everything
(My soul patented, Sans Garantie de Dieu).

I witness everything and exhaustively.
There's no woman's jewel that is not bought by me and for me,
No thought of waiting that is not in some way mine,
No conversation that doesn't in the end have a bearing on me,
No pealing bell in Lisbon in thirty years or night at the opera in fifty
That hasn't been gallantly laid at my feet.

I was brought up by Imagination,
I always travelled by her hand,
And thus I always loved, hated, spoke, thought,
Having every day this window before me,
Every hour being mine in this way.