Casida of the Recumbent Woman by Federico Garcia Lorca

Your belly is a knot of roots, your lips a dawn with no outline.

Casida of the Recumbent Woman

by Federico Garcia Lorca¹

---

To see you naked is to know the Earth.
The Earth glistening, empty of horses.
The Earth, reed-less, pure in form,
closed to futures, horizon of silver.

To see you naked is to see the concern
of rain searching for a fragile waist,
or the feverish sea's immense face,
not finding its own brightness.

Blood will cry in the alcoves,
enter with swords on fire,
but you will not know the cache,
of the toad's heart or the violet.

Your belly is a knot of roots,
your lips a dawn with no outline.
Under the bed's cool roses,
the dead moan, waiting their turn.

1. Source: poesi.as Translated by A. S. Kline