Songs of Bilitis - Benjamin Adamah

NIGHT WORDS
We are resting, our eyes closed; the quietude is great about our bed. Ineffable
summer nights! But she, thinking that I sleep, puts her warm hand on my arm.
She murmurs: "Bilitis, are you asleep?" My heart pounds, but without answering
I breathe as calmly as a sleeping woman in her dreams. Then she begins to
speak:
"Since you cannot hear me," she says, "Ah! how I love you!" And she repeats my
name: "Bilitis . . . Bilitis . . . " And she strokes me with the tips of trembling
fingers:
"This mouth is mine! and mine alone! Is there another in the world as lovely? Ah!
my happiness, my happiness! These naked arms are mine, this neck, this hair. . ."
ABSENCE
She has gone out, and she is far away, but I see her still, for all within this room
is full of her, all is hers, and I just like the rest.
This bed, still warm, where my mouth is wandering now, is rumpled to the
pattern of her body. In this soft pillow her little ringleted head has softly slept.
This is the basin where she oft has washed; this comb has smoothed the knots of
her tangled hair. These slippers have held her little naked feet. This gauze
bandeau restrained her swelling breasts.
But I dare not touch, even with my finger, this mirror in which she sees her
burning bruises, and in which, perhaps, the image of her sweet moist lips is still
reflected.
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