The Cold

The Cold

The first suitor gives you a bird

with yellow plumage, a gray and sharp beak.

The tone of the feathers dazzles you, amazes you.

Its texture caresses you already.

You find the color, you don't really like, exquisite.

But you think you might love it, enjoy it.

A beautiful animal, but its song is brief,

almost like a chirp and it never stops, it distresses you.

A second suitor places his hand on your cheek.

Then your exposed skin gathers a tremor

without anguish on those fingers, a desire that changes

on that hand to the shape it cannot change to on the lips.

You look into each other's eyes and an insane

embarrassment fills your cheeks with purple feelings.

Your hair fenced with implacable relentless hairpins

flaunts you differently: you're not a girl anymore.

You drink from the glass set before you at the table,

with fineness, with firmness, with hunger.

The drink tastes flavorful and you enjoy it.

It's sweet and haunted with a volatile liquor

that will transform your breath into perfume.

You talk and the wooer sleeps to dream you're talking.

Naive, whatever you believe, is nothing more than an illusion.

The words you hear are new dresses for very old fevers.

Your beauty does not matter because that does not matter,

or it only interests as long as it persists or is sufficient.

Your treasure shines like a trembling light.

Insects surround its immediate heat.

From afar I watch you. Callous. I do not participate.

The cold that bristles, are my folded arms.