I am quite mad and you are wholly sane
From the mind's paradise I've sought to flee
You are all wise, yours are the summer months
So leave the winter's changing face for me.

I'm sick with love and I'm past any cure
Oppressed in body, that is woman's plight
My nerves are taut and should you only whisper
Into the empty air I would take flight.

I'm like small fish lost in the great ocean
When will you lift the siege ? You've hidden away
The key to unlock my house in your own pocket
And enter my life's details day by day.

O love, my passion whirls me dizzily
Gather my scattered soul whose fragments fly
For you are standing at the frozen pole
And I beneath an equatorial sky.

O love, I stand against the ten commandments
History behind is only blood and sand
To love I owe allegiance. Lemon trees
Within your breast my only native land.





Free Harbor

Many ships have asked for sanctuary
In the harbor of my eyes
I refused asylum to all of them
Your ships alone
Have the right to take refuge
In my territorial waters
Your ships alone
Have the right to sail in my blood
Without prior permission.





You Alone

You alone . . . control my history
And write your name on the first page
And on the third, and on the tenth,
And on the last.
You alone are allowed to sport with my days
From the first century of my birth
To the twenty-first century after love.
You alone can add to my days what you wish
And delete what you wish
My whole history flows from the palms of your hands
And pours into your palms.





A Wild Cat

Your love lurks in my veins like a bandit
Commits arson, shatters lanterns
And skulks in the corners of my veins
Like a wild cat with sharp claws
Alert to hunt moths
To pounce on birds
And I lie awake at night waiting for it to come forth
From my blood.

You came with your conquering army, and caused an upheaval
That changed my life
You sequestered all my possessions
Bound me with chains of gold
And put me under house arrest
Within the limits of your eyes
You locked me in the cell of love
And took the keys away with you.