[unrefined; rip it to shreds]
... ... ...
nose prints on beaded glass and marker-stained palms aside,
she wonders how difficult it would be to reclaim the past.
not the past in which he sang opera into her very throat
into her soul and her stomach, hot and imperative as youth—
a different imperative, the kind that made her
kick off sandals and leap across the desert of hot pavement,
stare into the sun until the world went blue and green
and slough off the anonymity of third person for I and me and you
that trust that immortality is a cemented tenet of humanity.
oh the path from wrist to throat (the hollow in her elbow,
the ridges of collarbones and the well below her chin)
tells a different story.
trust, he’d invoked, eyes earnest and searching, his voice
far closer to hers than anyone’s ever had been before. trust.
and as hands inched upwards and downwards and inwards
and oh si je t’aime prends garde á toi he sang to her si je t’aime
prends garde á toi and she whispered back, fingers trembling
like she hadn’t believed they would verde que te quiero verde and
(lost in translation takes on such new dimensions here)
fingers and trust and now nose prints on glass
as cold as her stomach and empty womb.
... ... ...
translations:
si je t'aime, prends garde a toi -- if I love you, beware of me
(from Bizet's opera, Carmen)
verde que te quiero verde -- green, how I want you green
(from Federico Garcia Lorca's poem Romance Sonambulo)
