Elizabeth Bishop

I came across a poem in the New Yorker by Elizabeth Bishop which I thought was beautiful. It reminds me of another poem, by Boris Pasternak called Winter Night. Of course, as Nabokov wrote vehemently, you cannot translate poetry, so the Pasternak translation is a pale shadow of the original.

Anyhow, here is the Bishop poem - enjoy!

Close, close all night
the lovers keep.
They turn together,
in their sleep,

close as two pages
in a book
that read each other
in the dark.

Each knows all
the other knows,
learned by heart
from head to toes