A bird thrown to thirst trembles in your mouth. High temples of light walk awake in your fingers. That angel speaks with your voice, seduced by magic, body, an unsuspected word. In your eyelids swims a beautiful, elusive fish, and in the black cascade of your thick hair, an image of flesh with bright, clear wings. My eyes don’t paint you, nor my masculine stroke. My art doesn’t shape her; boundless water strikes me when I look at you, hands spread by desirous magnets, and it doesn’t matter you may be mute because you speak by touching me. Between your breasts impossible shades, forests and bays, sugarcane, wet colonies, seaweed, oaks, grass. I peek at the sacred flash of your hands and fear that watching me your voice takes off its clothes, and like St. Francis of Asisi it might speak to birds, and it might take off its shoes and be lighter than air. Woman who unsouls me just by naming me; but no matter if you are mute, you sing when you see. In your belly rocks a sea with straight sails, in your hair a jet of water wears down the night, in your mouth of clouds and birds I lose myself, and no matter if you are mute, you sing when you love.
José Mármol
translated from the Spanish by Erica Mena