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Floarea Þuþuianu
The Lion Mark
Every morning a woman slips out of a man’s skin and throws herself on the flames I no longer know what I look like here where the eye rolls in complete circles not seeing itself here where the sand makes you one with the earth that fills you I write on sand: Nexus Plexus Sexus Minodora Mitrodora Nymphodora until the sand rushes off helter-skelter (I. A line furrowing the sand) I’m flat on the ground I tell myself pressing my face to the soil mumbling shameless words through nose and mouth I’ll have to prepare a word with flesh of my flesh and blood of my blood He is going to fill me. This word will be my soul I’ll give birth to him through my mouth. I stand up and stumble in my wings
Over his shoulder the Lion Mark gazes at me with meek yellow eyes
translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Irma Giannetti
Leda and the Swan
I laughed cut loose turned cartwheels I invented men of paper from paper head to paper toe eyes bulging with words
I laughed squandered words until mere skin and bone I survived in just one word
I threw that word high in the air Then golden rain fecundated the poet in me (while on the wall I drew the shadow of my sex)
The lunatic the virgin the man poked their heads out They breathed fire through gaping mouths at the stroke of each hour
Oh Lord God, let me stay woman I want to be Leda the swan between my legs
translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Irma Giannetti
He Hasn’t Yet Been Born
He hasn’t yet been born the man who could be half what I am as a woman
Even if they weep between my thighs my lovers are the good old boys of other women Together we make paper children whom we raise with zeal When we get bored we fold them into airplanes because it’s endless and tiring for the body to read books
You can’t take a man from another woman’s mouth
Wasted on page after page their seed swells my books
Pale I feel the tree of life rustling through them
Their smiles I cut myself on each morning The blood I bathe in each night because love is as indomitable as death tramp tramp tramping toward life
He hasn’t yet been born the man who could be half what I am as a woman
translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Irma Giannetti The Art of Seduction
Ear doesn’t hear me. Eye sees what it believes Tongue doesn’t obey. Time is against me
Somebody comes leafs through me goes away. Somebody else comes Tramps all over me waits. The last to come shall also be the first who: Puts a finger on his tongue then riffles through me page by page: only sophisticated words with a model’s legs He sees in color everything moves. Let him lead us on
I prolong it through words. Only milk and honey He squeezes me between pages. He wants to know so much more I pour a little poison. Just enough to. I bathe it in words I stay on his brain on his tongue. I spew fire and pearls from my mouth
Loneliness gets transmitted from me through oral contact
He turns pensive. Sees blue. Is someone else Wants to capture me alive. Skin me I scream discreetly disappear with easy elegance between the lines
Ear doesn’t hear me. Eye sees what it believes Tongue doesn’t obey. Time is against me
translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Irma Giannetti
A Kingdom for a Man
Little nightmares nip at me I’m sitting on a thousand and one needles. The sand eddies Silver scales glisten in the soil I see the snake-woman
An angel comes and goes comes and goes. Bends above a siren who scarcely can breathe through her bronchi But who covers her hand with her sex (her sex of shells) I see the fish-woman
A kingdom. For a man
Nothing can be compared to the dew of his brow that dropped on my lips while he sweated above me
Oh, Nonnus, it’s not for you to understand but the gods applaud me
translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Irma Giannetti
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