VESUVIUS translated at Rosmarie ...

VESUVIUS

translated at Rosmarie Waldrop


after days of kissing and weeping we reached
the first fissure of the heart
smoke issued from it, smoke?
how shall I set it: ice, but more fleeting
more like a flag than a tongue
and behind, as if looking within
washed intestines, a cleared
esophagus: light! however light in form
of a crater. violet like a papal
sample. its inlet as it is called
the orifice of the heart, a crater.
lined up forward its smoky edge the twelve
whores of the horoscope babble
of nature and things
of certainty and doubt

(RW)