The rendezvous is actually a fair game:
The jaguars open their mouths
One of them grabs the novice who has entered through the door
The novice, from claw to claw…

But this way, the novice gets to taste the city
In the end, the taste of mixed blood lingers in everyone’s mouth

Soon, the fledgling
Forgets the value of his white flesh
The city’s opiate honey trickles from the cut on his neck

You know how as a child, you taste
Your own blood at the knee’s first scrape:
A frightening flavor,
A sinful fragrance,
A dream in which you fly until you taper off

Is this why the city’s novices
Scrape their flesh against the crowds
Like children who’ve fallen for the first time? Just to remember
The taste of that first wound, of that first blood:
A frightening flavor,
A sinful aroma,
A dream in which you fly until you fall

The city’s novices seek wounds in the streets
In order to taste themselves

Oh boneless flesh! Oh facile morsel!
The blood you drink
—remember, you thought so as a child—
Won’t slip from your tongue
Back into your veins.
This is how the city,
With its sweet, opiate claws,
Drains your blood

Fourth Play: Night’s Seed

One night among nights, one morning
The novice finally comprehends
The city’s claw, and its opium,
And what a novice he is

For another novice has entered through the door
His eye watches the jaguars slink toward the new novice
He sees his own old film replayed through the new poor soul
Now, the bloody marks on that novice’s nape
Are fresher than his own

In this way, the city tells him its own rule:

Don’t look back. You’ll turn to stone!
This is the rule. You’ll certainly weary!

No one speaks of last night—
Look, no one but you reflects on the events
They remain silent because they know the rule
They repeat to themselves

Don’t look back. You’ll turn to stone!

Time does not accrue in city nights. Every single night fades into itself. No one can add one night to another. One night’s person, the same person, doesn’t resemble himself another night. Rogue desires, symmetries you’re unaware of, are things that always change…

There are crowds of carnal nomads!

To lure you into the game
They turn you into a supine, crying child
In fact neither do you cry, nor do they laugh at you
But still…
Urbanites are worse than heartless children

Even if the city’s time does accrue
Its records are kept in people’s vulgar hideouts

You can’t keep up with this messy history
Oh my child!
Don’t look back. You’ll turn to stone!