Love ascended between us

Direct translation of “El Amor Ascendía Entre Nosotros,”
by Miguel Hernandez

Love rose up between us
Like Luna between two tall palms
Which have never embraced.

Intimate rumor of two bodies
Swelled coo-coo to crescendo,
But the croak was seized—
The lips, they turned stone.

Flesh moved, anxious to encircle,
Clarified the swollen bones,
But arms, aching to stretch,
Perished in very arms.

Love passed, moon between us
And devoured our lone bodies;
And we became ghosts,
Seeking each other and meeting afar.

Folly between us

Creative adaptation from “El Amor Ascendía Entre Nosotros,”
by Miguel Hernandez

Love reared up between us
In the never time between poised to embrace
And having embraced.
The white sheet, unrecognition,
Rippled its folds into our wading water.

After long silence, no folly of speech,
Only the punishing urge to noises
Of creature despair.
But mouths, open against our boundary pearl,
Froze, mesmerized in its sheen.

Desire flooded limbs restrained,
Overwhelmed our grasping senses,
Left us vulnerable to stroke,
And dumb to use the orb as dish
To serve each tasty other.

Quicksilver desperation shimmered
Into pupils mutually fixed,
Devoured like a spark through powdered fuse of mortal coil.

We became scattered chinks of moonlight—
Phantoms mingling in far-flung shadows.