translated by Tracy K. Smith and Changtai Bi
My eye laps at you in lamplight
Like a white hot tongue. Longing
Draws back, then rises, tidal.
The curtain of my hair
Announces my breasts. Your lips:
A languid breeze. Like a miracle
We feast and feast and nothing is spent.
Let flesh attend to flesh, sex to sex.
O, dexterous gold watch of the universe
On which one minute can straddle
A hundred years.
Copyright © 2018 by Tracy K. Smith. Used with the permission of the author.