Sweet torturer, How I savor your twitching, Teeth-fighting in ecstasy! The world of wild seas! Blue and purple Make blood The color of breakwater: A million white teeth of Dante! So I run In the blue light of snow To catch the end of a Carnival. A ship tossing on swelling breasts! The captain is a phantom goat. The revolting sailors Trade under table. I’m running toward betrayal. Sweet torturer, How artful you weave the labyrinth Of laughing and bleeding! I’m a worm in your decorous Hades. A white-haired girl flying Spirit ascending with tornado: The dried bones of slaves inside four walls. Where are you leading me? In the ashes of ruined palaces, A familiar figure digging: My ancestor’s burial ground. Hieroglyphs on tortoise shells glimmering with rust. I hit the road again. In a foreign station, where the blacks Riding the Mississippi to the machine song: The beginning of my secret fantasy. Sweet torturer, How many times I have drained my veins Before the dusky wind blows into your skull! Incarnations do exist. Maybe it’s Yuan Fen Sets my plexus aflame. On the ocean floor I’m reaching your statuesque coast With lead on my back. Tonight, I’ll meet your whisperings On my bed of castor leaves. No more nightingale’s lullaby. I trust your invisible hands. ---LTG
