Now eventually we’ll have to peel away from mountains,
While the narrow gauge railroad still takes her tourists
Back and forth between Silverton and Durango,
Even while I went back to her and climbed her peeks
After running down in a lightning storm
Not wishing to hear what the stones had to gossip to me:
That is how far up I’ve been Sharon,
And that really is all that I’ve seen:
That I have been above your bed by which you made your child on,
While my body was all alone and vagabonding;
And it has been ages since I have field tripped to a museum,
Except I took Alma to the zoo a week ago while my
Parents were losing the fruit market,
And then we kissed in the darkness: and we kissed:
Before that I slept atop of Alma’s roof and curses and blessed her,
And before that I skipped school and took off all of my clothes
All the way down to my under wear and stole a raft from
A middle class pool and luxuriated in the canals you never tasted:
But on Friday I smelled Alma’s perfume:
It lasted all the way down to Miami; and she only weighs a hundred
And ten pounds,
And she is younger than my youngest sister and more beautiful:
And that is no exageration, and that is why I write to her:
Because I can take her in the morning, Sharon, because she loves
Me even if she won’t admit it,
For all that I have written for her, but I can still remember you,
While all of the houses sleep in their darkened abutments,
Even though your perfume has disappeared into the abutments of
Another eclipse I fear that I shall never taste,
While Alma’s lips are a well I can reach tomorrow:
For she enriches me, and for right now I can live forever.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem