“ the remarkable thing about her was
That in spite of all her debaucheries
Her vast sexual experience,
And the fact that usually
Her aptitude matched her age. . .
How intimate they are
These summer evenings—
Embracing gently in the city air
The wind blows through his hair;
Or briskly breaking through the fray—
Hand-in-hand in the remnant heat of day,
Her nape blossomed with bliss as if to say
Homeward into limb-locked dreams we wend our wanton way. . .
And I thought of Cavafy—
And we talked, of Cavafy:
Café’d trysts praised but sex we said but vague, festooned, clichéd. . .
“ —in spite of this, there were moments
Incredibly rare, of course, when she gave the impression
That her flesh was almost. . .
But if that flesh aloof soon flushed
Autumnal dusks round lungs through tongues throat-cusped,
Need blithe lisps blush to rhyme tush touched? To cant his phallus reared with lust—?
Or how unctured her glands glad gushed—whence thrust to consummate their trust—?
That is, must lewd delights benight crepuscules’ plush
Long, lingered, legioned-lushèd, light-heart hushes, thus?
Butterflies—
fall
in love
“ her twenty-nine year old body
So used by pleasure
Would sometimes, strangely,
Remind one of a girl, who
Somewhat awkwardly
Gives her pure beauty to love for the first time—”
—Κωνσταντίνα Καβάφη
(& translators, redactors, &c.)
[To the musing Streets of
Bristol, Πάτρα and
that other cursèd city, alas]
2022-2023