A worn-out transport ship hangs motionless in space while the ordinary rules of the universe seem to melt away around it. The scene is science fiction, but the tone is hushed rather than thrilling. A slight shudder runs through the hull and into the sleeping convicts, and on a monitor the constellations shift, the only sign that the ship is moving at all.
The poem's quiet center is the chief engineer, who is also a convict. In an almost empty lounge, he whispers lines from Jean Follain's *Transparence of the World*. The speaker doesn't comment on his feelings, but the detail speaks for itself: even a prisoner carrying out a vast, mechanical journey makes time for something small, private and human. The mood is calm, lonely and strangely tender. The title, "Usage du temps" (French for "use of time"), hints at how these people fill the long hours of their passage, some sleeping, one reading poetry to himself.