SQUIRRELS Poem by Sigitas Parulskis

Your breasts, as you leave the bath-
room - if I was a real poet I'd say,
emerge from the lilac glen - your breasts are like
two squirrels perched on a branch,
small brown snouts just barely turned to the side
they survey from above what new things this world has to offer

if I was a poet I would say that a deluge of desire
flows into the valley of my pelvis when I see
those squirrels looking
at me as though at a god, or at fauna
no, at the very least at an old and
lame satyr

potent streams of desire flow down
from the clouds of my brain through the foliage of lungs
over kidney stones, murmur in the liver's shoals
and then, thriving in the deepest cave in the valley
a firm rooted trunk
comes into leaf, sceptre of life, axis mundi
that's what I would say, if I were a poet

instead I simply stretch my hands towards you and the tame
little animals eat calmly from my
palms
and I stiffen just a little