KATIA READING Poem by Ramón Cote Baraibar

Balthus
There is no greater pleasure in life,
Katia, than spying on you

on Saturday afternoons
when solitary in your room you read

that book with the yellow cover.

With each page you turn
you slide like an angora cat

the sole of your feet on the carpet
while your legs going up

going down contracting stretching out
little by little draw back your skirt,

millimetre by millimetre,
dangerously drawing near to your sex,

to your secret bay, your magic potion,
the garden unknown even to you.

There is no other pleasure like this
in life, Katia, on Saturdays

when spying on you from behind a wall
we wait for the moment you recognise

that the age of innocence
has come to its end,

that all over your body a serpent
offers the most tempting of apples

and that you then decide to undress and discover
with your fingers and before our eyes

that hidden flame burning with desire
you defiantly look at with dread and pleasure

- the world that you now belong to.