Song of an
Unexpected Love

No one understood the perfume that came
From the dark magnolia of your womb;
No one knew how you tortured
The hummingbird of love between your teeth.

A thousand tiny Persian horses slept with the moon
In the plaza of your forehead,
While four nights I bound
Your waist against the snow.

Between the wall and the jasmines,
Your gaze a pale branch of seeds,
I looked into my heart to give you
The ivory letters that say always,
Always, always: garden of my agony ---
Your fugitive body forever,
The blood of your veins in my mouth,
Your mouth now without light for my death.

--- From Diván del Tamarit
by Federico García Lorca
Carlos Amantea,
Translator