Antique

Graceful son of Pan! Around your forehead crowned with small flowers and berries, your eyes, precious spheres, are moving. Spotted with brownish wine lees, your cheeks grow hollow. Your fangs are gleaming. Your chest is like a lyre, jingling sounds circulate between your blond arms. Your heart beats in that belly where the double sex sleeps. Walk at night, gently moving that thigh, that second thigh and that left leg.

From Illuminations by Arthur Rimbaud, published by W.W. Norton. Copyright © 2011 by John Ashbery. Used by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.