VERKLÄRTE NACHT Poem by Leonard Nolens

We are sitting naked at table. Your eyes light up the room.
Luminescent, your butterfly hands stir the air as you speak
To me, or quiet in sleep on the black cloth remain.

I touch them every day. Their lifelines know my name.
Their transparent veins conceal the course of my fate, the beat
Of our blood that changes the white of your cheeks to desire's mottled bloom.

The back door blows open. The first drops of rain rustle through
The trees, sprinkling the wind-shaken window in which you sit glowing,
A light which shows me myself, into whom I may fade and pass.

You pile up the plates, brush the crumbs off an fill up my glass.
From the kitchen I hear the clink of knives and blue porcelain echoing,
Far off. My legs are aching with not being able to go to you.