Virginity | Betrayal

Virginity

We…

The chaos of hazel, bedraggled after rain,

carries the fragrance of plump, pulped nuts,

while cows are birthing on sweltering terrain,

birthing in barns which burn like nighttime skies—

O ripened currants and ripened corn,

succulence surging and floodwards swelling,

O she-wolves nursing your newly born,

the eyes of she-wolves as sweet as lilies!

Honeyed resin drips its apiarity,

the goat is weighed down by its pumpkin-round udder—

—white milk flows like eternity

in the temples of the breast of the mother.

And we…

…in cubes of peach-tinted wallpaper,

as hermetically sealed

as a steel thermos,

ensnared to our necks in dresses,

carry out

civilized

conversations.

Betrayal

No one will shackle me.

Sin out of suede and bats

has hung in the attics of terror, its half-mouse snout upside-down—

At dusk I’ll slip out the tower, escape the fortified tower,

through slash and slice of wasp,

barbed wire of poisoned herb—

Heavily they’ll rise through the rubble: the commandments’ crowded crags,

the twenty hells of the Vedas,

the flames,

the tempest

the screech,

the fanatical night will threaten to stone me with stars,

I’ll slip through their fingers like mercury.

Nothing will shackle me.

If you become a wolf, I’ll turn into a wagtail—

if you be eagle, I’ll be winding wonders——

with impenetrable intent I’ll prevent your every turn.

The world won’t shackle me,

my darling—my love—my dear

unless I myself desire

sweet

Maytime

constancy.

“Dziewictwo” and “Zdrada” from O Centaurach. Warszawa: J. Przeworski, 1936.

Image by Antonio Carrau.