I was a hundred years old. Poetry has moored itself
To my life. I had never met her
She was dirty, she poked her head out of a muddy stream
I don’t know how or when,
Without words, without elongated sentences
She slapped my neck
She rowed in the dark night
Avoided the tumultuous winds
And the insults of the impalpable skies
I touched her palm with my moist hand
And I took her to my home.

I didn’t know what to say to her.
Her mouth was chapped,
Mine inanimate
I didn’t know how to talk to her,
I didn’t know how to tell her anything
Nor the flying stars that animated my lashes
Nor the youth and the fire and the white lightning that dance in the mountains;

My eyes swallowed the pride of his white neck
And my soul curled up in a ball
Like a frightened dog in an old forest
I was left alone with her
Alone, face to face with her sad angel face
Then poetry told me I love you

And I wrote the first line
I saw her dancing in my shadow
Teasing the dilapidated paths
Seducing the fire-dazzled penumbra
I saw her beg for my flesh
Like a stormy cloud
And the sky
Disintegrated
In the open sky light
Of this verse written in tears
Liters of perfumed oils
And my pupils perforated
By the arrows of the mauve ink
Floated on the paper of the pale night