Cinnamon fingers 3

You gave it
To the night in me.
A word that
Sprang at me
From your young mouth
And licked me like a
Tongue

Where I was a wound,
Man like a man,

And into my mouth death came
When you deeply kissed
and took me.

I had the years against me
Your supple body for me,

A time that became a tide
In the rainy days of
A small room somewhere
Out of the way, just like we knew
Everything

Your bed was red
The water from your cries
As clear as the spring
We did not know.

Sleep with me in
That never discovered bed
Of Betty Boop

And do not write to me.
Old-rose is the inner edge
Of Youth, the overturned
Tall-stemmed glasses
Our time,
Cinnamon beneath your skirts,
finiteness.

Translation by John Irons.