MY GRAND-DAD MADE MY MOTHER AND MY FATHER ME

I'm courting you, my little ones,

and undressing you with my eyes, down to the parts

where childish life begins

and to the luckiest of men it is given

to begin thus the evening and thus to end the morning.

I'm courting you, in a poem with a tender theme,

a poem, which till this day all women owed men.

A tender theme, indeed!

Why? Isn't there enough tenderness in you "let's get to it, lovey"

a phrase which kills a woman's soul for her body's benefit.

I'm courting you, my little ones,

and you, confused by anecdotes about the blushing and shy ones

not believing your eyes or your wand

come to my threshold

with flowers and pebble-words, spittle-smoothed,

which, together with you, I recite, deep inside,

I got them by heart years ago.

Your words about lips and hair and who knows what,

everybody knows to what this manner of speech tends:

give names to everything, from head to toe, and make of them your playthings.

Your words; lily-woman, orchid-woman,

snowdrop-woman, epopee-woman,

woman, the poem with butterly hands,

woman, known and unknown,

woman, in dreams and getting up in the morning

the morning which discovers her alone.

How do they dare deny

women their lily-man, tulip-man,

orchid-man, pasque-man, the man's petit chose

in a poem with masculine rhymes, known man unknown

in a white skinned man with butterfly hands,

which shaves every day, and faced with the razor

has problems the woman has just once a month.

Well, isn't a man in a bath the orchid of the subaqueous empire?

with legs crossed over the blooming lily?

isn't man of petting a master and to horses a cage?

and cannot he of eternal passion be a narcissus?

with his body a musical instrument with a kissable little neck

and with his bow

and his little pink scallops?

I'm courting you, dear little boys,

and you came one by one to my threshold,

hearts you proffer

and also fear, I'm not humiliated by your thanksgiving

for women, who are so difficult to catch these days,

and meanwhile you are being humiliated by the clear thought

which hasn't overcome its own drop at the doorstep.

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You are the perfect columns, upon which rest the world.

You are the dreamless night of love

and an object for the curly beauty of her lap,

you are the sky above my head and the fragrant earth,

you are grace itself, borne by its own hands

trembling towards the excavators of my lap, toward the burden unbearable.

I'm courting you, my loves,

and you boast of higher desires

while there's only one you pump your blood towards each day,

and a woman sighs once

and you a hundred times sigh.

Look, towards the unique ovum of woman's labyrinthine body

you let fly plenty of your sperms

and you are courting with a deep bow and fear

about whether she got what she wanted from you.

If this isn't heroism and tenderness, sorrow and happiness,

reason and body,

then all human happiness has died forever.

That's why I bow before you, my little boys,

you are woven from quay-stones, from tiny, itsy-bitsy summer-spiders,

and also from the quarried rocks.

You little boys from sweet amorous pubs and from battles

lost

in the doors of girls' houses.

I'm taking a bow and taking from from you than I give

and with pleasure both heavenly and earthly.

If I ever become a man

we'll die together

for a woman.