You are a lovely sky of autumn, clear and rose!

But inside me, grief is rising, like the sea,

Leaving as it ebbs upon my lip morose,

Bitter culinary silts of memory.

— Vainly does your hand slide on my swooning breast;

This place it is seeking has been pillaged, friend,

By the woman’s tooth-and-claw ferociousness.

My heart was eaten by the beasts. Let searching end.

My heart is like a palace ransacked by a riot;

One gets drunk there, one pulls hair there, one is quiet!

— Around your naked neck is swimming a perfume! . . .

O Beauty, scourge of hearts, this thing you would consume!

With your eyes of fire, akin to brilliant feasts,

Burn to ash these remnants salvaged by the beasts!

translated by Jennifer Reeser