Bentota beach

Bentota beach
Originally uploaded by The Albanian.

Frederico Garcia Lorca
THE UNFAITHFUL WIFE
(river replaced with beach)


I took her to the beach
Believing she was a virgin
But she had a husband.

It was the night of Saint James and almost as promised
The street lamps extinguished as the crickets lit up
In the far corners I touched her sleeping nipples,
And suddenly they opened to me
Like a hyacinth branch.

The starch of her taffeta
Sounded in my ear like silk scratched by ten knives.
Without silver light on their crowns the trees had grown,
And an horizon of dogs barked very far from the river.

Beyond raspberry bushes, rushes and thorn shrubs,
Under her matted hair I hollowed out the mud.
I took off my tie.
She dropped her dress.
I unbuckled my gunbelt
She let fall her four laces.
Neither white petals nor snails have skin so fine
Nor moonlit crystals shine with her brilliance.

Her thighs escaped me like surprised fish,
Half filled with embers, half filled with ice.
That night I ran—best runner of all the roads,
Mounted on a pearly steed, neither saddle nor bridle.

As a man I can not tell the things she told me
Light of understanding makes me prudent.
Dirty with sand and with kisses
I took her away from the beach
The swords of the lilies flailed in the breezes.

I behaved as befit me, a genuine gypsy
I gave her a sewing basket of straw-colored silk
I refused to fall in love with her because she has a husband.
She said she was virgin when I took her to the beach.