Your hair is tied back in a puritan bunch,
but an animal heat flows out of your eyes.
You are just as the god created you once
from the red meridional clay.
An archaeologist dug you out of your bed
among primitive tools and bones of the dead.
Millennia had passed, and no one had caressed
your strong thighs and your young girl’s breasts.
For centuries lust for your torrified land
will rage in you, hopelessly seeking a vent.
And your half-open mouth is cracked by a thirst
that can never be quenched.
Translated by Peter France