Daphne (2)

And looking back at the pursuing god,
she knew she wouldn't make it –
like a pigeon's wing hanging out of the frothy jaws,
something cold and moistened was
trembling, ripping her half-choking chest, a rod
of shaky flame, an instability
expanding, gradually gulping her calm and lofty
countenance, her lugubrious repugnance
of anything that thrusts and violates.

Her skin, scratched by the branches,
glowed with scarlet streaks, her sticky armpits
made a subdued sound of a duck that plunges
into the messy pond and hits
the stagnant life with its refulgent webbed feet.
Her hair was brushing against her eyes,
descending, fluctuating, all of it,
muffling her murmurs and brief cries,
subsiding into the ever-growing pit.

Her wounds, her sweaty and dismissive flesh
were made yet more apparent by the glare
of her pursuer and his desire to enmesh
each pore of her weak tortured back
in his effulgence, his millions of bare
sun-gobbled worlds, his planets losing track
in the impatient reign of blinding light,
the prick of brier buried in her neck
stood out like a chestnut-coloured tower
besieged by the meandering sands, but still
displaying its all-conquering height,
watching the desert grow, its every speck
made more assured, hour by hour,
to hide it in a shifting amber hill.

And then, when she could feel his touch,
his curving rays enveloping her breasts,
his huge eye resting upon her shoulder,
his alert milky spout, his much
wound-up distempered breaths,
his body leaning forward harder, bolder,
already flying next to her,
already turning towards her,
gaping at her, devouring her,
his heart all ruby naked, looking through
his azure-drenched, gold-soaked, celestial flesh –

she calmed down.
The tower disappeared under the sands,
like the one who suddenly
sits up and comprehends,
the veil fell off, and the day bestrewn
with random dismal elements,
began to breathe serenely.

She heard her fingers rustle in the wind,
her arms stretch out, twist and sing,
all movement ceased, the hurtful blade-like wing
within her chest was gone.
She was alone, warmed from behind
by the subdued sunlight, she stood up,
unfolded splendidly, forgetting her pursuit,
her anguish, her exploding heart.

Her verdant crown flew up, like a myriad
of speckled pigeons let out of the cage,
her bitter swelling breasts stood in the sard-
coloured rugged bark like penetrating eyes,
looking intently at the pond,
at the ducks whirling through the greenish blue,
the fragrant jacinth cores of water lilies,
the elongated carp splashing in the new
sundawn, flinging the drops of emerald
into her rueful crannies,
her body leaning low,
creaking hard.

Вланес, 2006

Сертификат Поэзия.ру: серия 790 № 50113 от 24.12.2006

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