(From) The Beginning - Veronica Volkow

I.
Hunger is the original eye of the body
primeval eye in the dark of the body
the eye with which flesh first beholds flesh

and a sanguinary darkness draws us inward

the eye
with which my feet see you my teeth
my fingers

the eye
with which I discover you centuries long
in one night of touching
that night
so like the night of the fish
the tiger
the snake
so like the first night of life

we close our eyes and are beast again
and our bodies are clamped like throats
choking on the shapely flavors

VI.
The lovers
have hands solely for loving
they have only their hands
hands that are feet and wings over their bodies
hands that constantly seek
the breathing animal behind buried eyes
fingers that set their bodies on fire
that are branches on which caresses flower
flowers that are birds that are flames that are hands
hands that are lost in their lightning writing

hands that travel the flesh of bodies
like stars touching at daybreak
like suns rising like shooting stars
like secret gods who draw the night

X.
Between your body my body
is the print of your body
is the eye the sound of your body
I hear your forearms
your teeth
your tongue
your thighs
I hear the shape of your body with all my skin

between my body your body
is another form of your body
like water turned to incandescent ice
or the open faucet of flames
your body
cries out in my body
and you, a loosed scream
a shouted star
a mute cry of flesh in my body

tell me isn't the flame
the seed of distant worlds
the peculiar and sudden nearness of the stars?

XI.
You are nude
and your smoothness is infinite
you tremble to my fingers
your breath flies inside your body

you are
like a bird in my hands
vulnerable
as only desire could make you vulnerable
that exquisite pain with which we touch one another
that surrender in which we know
the abandon of victims

pleasure like a tongue
licks us devours us
and our eyes burn out
are lost