Little

rose,

roselet,

at times,

tiny and naked,

it seems

as though you would fi

in one of my hands,

as though I’ll clasp you like this

and carry you to my mouth,

but

suddenly

my feet touch your feet and my mouth your lips:

you have grown,

your shoulders rise like two hills,

your breasts wander over my breast,

my arm scarcely manages to encircle the thin

new-moon line of your waist:

in love you have loosened yourself like sea water:

I can scarcely measure the sky’s most spacious eyes

and I lean down to your mouth to kiss the earth.”

Excerpt From

Love Poems

Pablo Neruda & Donald D. Walsh