from Tulips,
by Ana Rossetti:
CYBELE WITH THE ANNUAL OFFERING OF TULIPS
"May my heart burst!
May love at its pleasure
do
what it will with my body."
Amaru
Loosening its sheath, the rosy
tulip bud, firm turban,
maddens my blood with rude spring.
Infected with
sensual delirium,
my saliva lubricates your thick stalk,
the rigid stem that my hand enthrones,
your tall flower raised in shadowed parks.
Oh lacerate me,
vulnerable, pull me down,
fill my mouth with your humid silk.
My breasts
close around you like a ring,
I hold them
together, a setting for your jewel,
my lips half-open,
and a drop appears on your mauve peak.
--Ana Rossetti, translated
by Susan Suntree and Nancy Dale Nieman
************
The Garden of your Delights
Flowers, parts
of your body:
I demand their
juice.
I press between
my lips
the lacerating stem of the gladiola.
I would sew
lemons to your torso
and then finger their tips,
hard like the high nipples of a young girl.
Already my
tongue knows the smoothest spirals of your ear,
a snail that tastes of adolescent sap
and smells of your thighs.
Between my
thighs I hold moist petals.
Flowers, parts of your body.
-- Ana Rossetti, translated
by Susan Suntree and Nancy Dale Nieman