MOUTH TO MOUTH (fragment)
Cup of life where I love and dream
Of drinking death with somber satisfaction,
Furrow of fire where fantasy creates
Bold seeds of melancholy.
O mouth, you kiss from a distance, and beckon
In silence, a tablet of madness
The color of thirst and humid with flames…
Your teeth are a gate to the abyss!
Sex of a sad soul of glory
You anoint pleasure with pain; your kiss,
A dagger of fire in a sheath of ecstasy,
It devours me in dreams like a pink cancer…
A jewel of blood and moonlight; a vase filled
With roses of silence and harmony,
Nectary of his honey and his poison,
A vampire turned butterfly by daylight.
Ardent knife of glacial lilies,
Honeycomb of kisses, a living amphora
Where berries of dawn in the wine of dusk
Offer deliria and delight…
A case of flaming velvets
In which his voice is shining prey,
Wings of the word threatening flight
Chalice where the heart blazes.
Delmira Agustini
Translation by Alejandro Cáceres
Selected Poetry of Delmira Agustini: Poetics of Eros. Contributors: Alejandro Cáceres - editor, Willis Barnstone - unknown. Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press. Place of Publication: Carbondale, IL. Publication Year: 2003