The

Lesbian

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

The Opoponax

Los Gu�rill�re.

Body

Monique Wittig

Tronsloted /rom the French by Duvid Le liJy

, • ,

LInRARY OF THE

: C E U CENTRAL EUROPEAN

•

UNIVEJL'lI'fY

, • •

BUDAPEST

William Morrow and Company, Inc.

New York

1975

INTRODUCTION

In 1964 Monique Wittig, who was then 28, won the Prix

Medicis in France with her first novel, The Opoponax.

The poetry of its present-tense narrative and its evocative

word-building: immediately caught the attention of the

critics �d the novel with its schoolgirl heroines enjoyed a

succh tf esti"Je. Five years later came Les Cutiri/zeTes,

published with the admiring support of Mary McCarthy,

who found t14 second novel 'a surprise, almost a shock ...

the only work 'of beauty to come out of Women's Lib.'

The schoolgirls had vanished and these girl guerillas,

'pearl-tressed, two-breasted Amazons', beautiful, brilliant

and deadly, despatched the race of men and any belief in

crude, automatic maIe supremacy. A few retreating male

critics and readers uttered hoarse cries or crude words but

most of them were impressed by the book's originality and

the poetry of its language, even if the concepts behind it

were hardly likely to please them. Mter reading and relish

English translation copyright © 1975 by Peter Owen

ing it, wondering if in some way it could be termed a

Originally published in French under the title Le Corps Lesbien by

'conceit', trying to assess the author's attitudes and aIso her

Les Editions de Minuit, copyright © 1973 by Les Editions de Minuit.

undoubted sense of humour, I wondered too what Monique

Wittig would or could write next.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or

utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, in·

,In fact she strode over the dead bodies of men and

duding photocopying, recording or by any information storage and

devoted her next book to the female body and to relationretrieval system. without permission in writing from the Publisher.

ships, especially the love-relationship, between women. Men,

Inquiries should be addressed to William Morrow and Company,

Inc 105

and all recollections of ,any maIe symbol, had ceased to

.•

Madison Ave .• New York, N.Y. 10016.

exist What was left? What were all these women going to

Printed in the United States of America.

1 2 5 4 5 79 78 77 76 75

5

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 75-7738

ISBN 0·688·02900·0

do with themselves? They were going to celebrate the

affinnation of its reality. The lists of names contribute to

female principle with an intensity that has probably never

this activity. To recite one's own body, to recite the body

been achieved before.

of the other, is to recite the word of which the book is made

A great deal has been said and written during the last

up. The fascination for writing the never previously written

twenty years about women and their place in the world.

and the fascination for the unattained body proceed from

No one has explored this subject as passionately as Monique

the same desire.'

Wittig; no one has established that other world created and

Monique Wittig then queries the whole concept of the

inhabited by women. It is no longer parallel to the male

personal .pronoun which she maintains is impersonal, for it

world but evolves and revolves on its own in space and

is by implication 'human (masculine)'.

time. In this book that world is endowed with the ideal

beauty of the Greek islands where women once knew a

'I' Uel: obliterates the fact that elle or elles are submerged

culture of their own: but the starting point of life and

in il or ils, i.e., that all the feminine persons are comcivilization can after all only be the body.

plementary to the masculine persons . ... The 'I' Uel

Taken out of context, some of the narrator's invocations

who \\'rites is alien to her own writing at every word

could seem far-fetched. Clearly they should not be conbecause this 'I' U e 1 uses a language alien to her; this 'I'

sidered out of their context or interpreted literally; just as

U e 1 experiences what is alien to her since this 'I' U e 1

nobody would isolate a few square centimetres from a

cannot be 'un ecrivain' .. . I Ie is the symbol of the lived,

.

painting by Picasso or Dali, or claim that the endless erotic

rending experience which is m I y writing, of this cutting

incidents in The 120 Days 0/ Sodom were intended to be

in two which throughout literature is the exercise of a

realistic. Monique Wittig has chosen to celebrate the body

language which does not constitute mle as subject.

by creating a new version of the ecorchl and the skeleton

which exist not for study but for love, love which starts

The French Ie can be transformed on these lines, as can

with the individual and extends to the whole species.

the French and English possessive adjective and pronoun

This much accepted, some readers will ask why they

and the reflexive pronoun, but the typographical implausishould have to tolerate such expressions as 'the tendon of bility of splitting our English monosyllabic 'I' is obvious. It

Achillea' or the incident - inventive and amusing though it

has therefore been printed throughout as I .

. is about the principle of 'Archimedea'. In Wittig's world

-

David Le Yay, who is an eminent practising anatomist

they must tolerate them, otherwise they will be shut out.

and surgeon, has abandoned any male chauvinism long

Such adaptations are essential in a world where language

enough to translate this book. He has pointed out that over

is the clue to speech, life and the body itself. 'The body of

the centuries much poetic energy has been dedicated to the

the text', the author has written, 'subsumes all the words of

outside surface of the human body, but that nobody - with

the female body. The Lesbian Body attempts to achieve the

the possible exception of certain contributors to the Old

6

7

Testament has celebrated with such freedom the whole

-

of the body, its skin, bones, organs, muscles, nerves, secre·

tions and excretions, everything that adds up to lif,.

Life, yes, but is this women's world self-destructive?

Sappho, unfortunately for her devotees, is rumoured to

AUTHOR'S NOTE

have killed herself for a man. Monique Wittig's personae

are in no danger of doing that, for whatever we feel about

Le Corps Lesbien has lesbianism as its theme, that is, a

the premise from which they start, their progress after that

theme which cannot even be described as taboo, for it has

point reveals a frightening logic. The implications of a

no real existence in the history of literature. Male homopoetic anatomy of the female body are wider than even the sexual literature has a past, it has a present. The lesbians,

male chauvinists may think. When such phrases no longer

for their part, are silent - just as all women are as women

have any bitter relevance and the phrase 'two cultures' may

at all levels. When one has read the poems of Sappho,

have a sexual connotation only, Th, Lesbian Body will still

Radclyffe I Hall's Well of Loneliness, the poems of Sylvia

provide stimulating reading, for both women and men.

Plath and Anais Nin, La Bdtarde by Violette Leduc, one

has read everything. Only the women's movement has

Margaret Crosland

proved capable of producing lesbian texts in a context of

total rupture with masculine culture, texts written by

women exclusively for women, careless of male approval.

Le Corps Lesbien falls into this category.

The descriptions of the islands allude to the Amazons,

to the islands of women, the domains of women, which

formerly existed with their own culture. They also allude

to the Amazons of the present and the future. We already

have our islets, our islands, we are already in process of

living in a culture that befits us. The Amazons are women

who live among themselves, by themselves and for them·

selves at all the generally accepted levels: fictional, sym.

bolic, actual. Because we are illusionary for traditional male

culture we make no distinction between the three levels.

Our rea1ity is the fictional as it is socially accepted, our

symbols deny the traditional symbols and are fictional for

traditional male culture, and we possess an entire fiction

8

9

into which we project ourselves and which is already a

does not constitute mle as subject. J I e poses the ideological

possible reality. It is our fiction that validates us.

and historic question of feminine subjects. (Certain groups

The body of the text subsumes all the words of the

of women have proposed writing iee or ieue.) If I U Ie]

female body. Le Corps Lesbien attempts to achieve the

examine mly specific situation as subject in the language,

affinnation of its reality. The lists of names contribute to

I Ule] am physically incapable of writing '1' Ue],rUle]

this activity. To recite one's own body, to recite the body

have no desire to do so.

of the other, is to recite the words of which the book is

made up. The fascination for writing the never previously

written and the fascination for the unattained body proceed

from the same desire. The desire to bring the real body

violently to life in the words of the book (everything that

is written exists), the desire to do violence by writing to the

language which I U/ e] can enter only by force. '1' U e] as a

generic feminine subject can only enter by force into a

language which is foreign to it, for all that is human

(masculine) is foreign to it, the human not being feminine

grammatically speaking but he [ill or they fils]. 'I' Ue] con"

ceals the sexual differences of the verbal persons while

specifying them in verbal interchange. '1' Ue] obliterates

the fact that elle or elles are submerged in il or iis, i.e., that

all the feminine persons are complementary to the masculine persons. The feminine '1' Ue] who is speaking can fortunately forget this difference and assume indifferently

the masculine language. But the '1' Ue] who writes is driven

back to her specific experience as subject. The '1' U e] who

writes is alien to her own writing at every word because

this '1' U e] uses a language alien to her; this '1' U e] experithis 'I' U e] cannot be 'un ecrivain'. If, in writing

his language, this je

cannot do so. 1/ e is the symbol of the lived, rending experience which is m I y writing, of this cutting in two which throughout literature is the exercise of a language which

10

11

The Lesbian Body

In this dark adored adorned gehenna say your farewells

m/y very beautiful one m/y very strong one m/y very

indomitable one m/y very learned one m/y very ferocious

one m/yi very gentle one m/y best beloved to what they,

the wombt, call affection tenderness or gracious abandon.

There is hot one who is unaware of what takes place here,

which h:b no name as yet, let them seek it if they are

determided to do so, let them indulge in a storm of fine

rivalries, : that which I so utterly disown, while you with

siren voice entreat some woman with shining knees to

come to your aid. But you know that not one will be able

to bear seeing you with eyes turned up lids cut off your

yellow smoking intestines spread in the hollow of your

hands your tongue spat from your mouth long green

strings of your bile flowing over your breasts, not one

will be able to bear your low frenetic insistent laughter.

The gleam of your teeth your joy your sorrow the hidden

life of your viscera your blood your arteries your veins

your hollow habitations your organs your nerves their

rupture their spurting forth death slow decomposition

stench being devoured by worms your open skull, all will

be equally unbearable to her.

If some woman should speak your name I feel as if mly

ears were about to fall heavily to the ground, I feel mly

blood wanning in mly arteries, I perceive at a glance the

networks it irrigates, a cry fit to make mle burst issues

from the depth of mly lungs, I repress it with difficulty,

suddenly I become the place of the darkest mysteries,

I discover that your skin can be lifted layer by layer, I

mly skin bristles and becomes covered with stains, I am

pull, it lifts off, it coils above your knees, I pull starting

the pitch that burns the assailants' heads, I am the knife

at the labia, it slides the length of the belly, fine to exthat severs the carotid of the newborn ewe-Iambs, I am treme trl\IlSparency, I pull starting at the loins, the skin

the bullets of the submachine-guns that perforate the

uncovers ,the round muscles and trapezii of the back, it

intestines, I am the pincers brought to red heat in the

peels off ).IP to the nape of the neck, I arrive under your

fire that tear the flesh, I am the plaited whip that flagelhair, mly fingers traverse its thickness, I touch your skull, lates the skin, I am the electric current that blasts and

I grasp it with all mlY fingers, I press it, I gather �e

convulses the muscles, I am the gag that gags the mouth,

skin over the whole of the cranial vault, I tear off the skm

I am the bandage that hides the eyes, I am the bonds

brutally beneath the hair, I reveal the beauty of the shinthat tie the hands, I am the mad tormentor galvanized ing bone traversed by blood-vessels, mly two hands

by torture and your cries intoxicate ml e mly best becrush the vault and the occiput behind, now mly fingers loved the more that you restrain them. At this point I

bury themselves in the cerebral convolutions, the meninvoke your help mly incomparable Sappho, give mle inges are traversed by cerebrospinal fluid flowing from

by thousands the fingers that allay the wounds, give ml e

all quarters, m I y hands are plunged in the soft hent!the lips the tongue the saliva which draw one into the spheres I seek the medulla and the cerebellum tucked m

slow sweet poisoned country from which one cannot

somewhere underneath, now I hold all of you silent

return.

immobilized every cry blocked in your throat your last

thoughts belIind your eyes caught in mly hands, the

daylight is no purer than the depths of mly heart mly

dearest one.

16

17

You gaze at m/e with your ten thousand eyes, you do so

and it is 1, 1 do not stir, m/y feet are completely embedded in the ground, 1 allow m/yself to be reached by your ten thousand glances or if you prefer by the single

gianc� of your ten thousand eyes but it is not the same,

such an inunense gaze touches m/e everywhere, 1 hesitate

1 shall not utter your adorable name. Such is the interdict

to move, if 1 raise m/y arms toward the sun you slant

you have laid on m/e, so be it. 1 shall recount only how

your eyes to adjust to the light, they sparkle but you look

you come to seek m/e in the very depths of hell. You

at m/e or else if 1 should move into the shade 1 am cold

swim across the muddy waters of the river heedless of the

your eyes are not visible there where you follow ml e 1

semi-living lianas the roots the eyeless snakes. You sing

too am unseen by you, 1 am dumb in this desert devoid

without Ipause. The female guardians of the dead molliof your ten thousand eyes darker than the dark where fied close their gaping mouths. You obtain their peryour eyes would appear to m/e ten-thousand fold black mission to bring ml e back as far as the light of the living

and shining, 1 am alone until the moment when 1 hear a

on condition that you do not turn round to look at m/e.

variety of sounds of bells of tintinnabulations, 1 tremble,

The march along the underground passages is intermin1 am giddy, it reverberates within ml e, it makes ml e able. 1 can see your broad back one or other of your

quiver, it is the music of the eyes 1 say to m/yself, either

breasts when your movements show you in profile, 1 see

they clash together gently and with violence or' they proyour strong and powerful legs your straight pelvis, 1 see duce these many sounds by themselves, 1 fling m/yself

the hair that reaches your shoulders whose chestnut

flat on m/y face in front or behind this side or that , 1

colour 1 find so beautiful to look at that a pain rises in

gesticulate wildly to learn that 1 cannot escape the multiroly breast. You do not once turn round. The stink of plicity of your regard, wherever 1 may be m/y ineffable

m/y bowels surrounds us at m/y every movement. You

one you gaze at role with your ten thousand eyes.

seem not to notice it, you walk on steadily caiiing m/e

in a loud voice all the love names you were used to call

m/e. From time to time m/y yellow decaying arms from

which long worms emerge brush against you, some climb

on your back, you shudder, 1 can see your skin bristle

right across your shoulders. We traverse the length of the

galleries the underground tunnels the crypts the caves

the catacombs you singing with victorious voice the joy

18

19

of mly recovery. Mly kneecap; appear at mly kneelS

involves the carotids brachiaIs radials temporals, it infrom which shreds of flesh fall. Mly armpits are musty.

volves the iliacs femorals tibiaIs peroneals, the veins are

Mly breasts are eaten away. 1 have a hole in mly throat.

simultaneously laid open. 1 stumble against you, 1 can

The smell that escapes from mle is noisome. You do not

not look at you, your blood dazzles m/ e, your pallor

stop your nostrils. You do not exclaim with fright when

plunges m/ e into confusion distraction ecstasy. So exat a given moment mly putrescent and half-liquid body posed your lip; baring your teeth your eyes opening and

touches the length of your bare back. Not once do you

closing with difficulty, your brightness eclip;es the sun.

turn round, not even when I begin to howl in despair the

A gentle wheezing issues from your mouth. Each drop of

tears trickling down mly gnawed cheeks to beg you to

your blood each spurt from your arteries striking mly

leave mle in mly tomb to brutally describe to you mly

arteries Vibrates throughout m/ e. I am unable to stir, I

decomposition the purulence of mly eyes mly nose mly

await an apotheosis a glorious end in this place where

vulva the caries of mly teeth the fermentation of mly

the prim� colours are not lacking, 1 tremble before the

vital organs the colour of mly rotten-ripe muscles. You

bright red efIIux from your arteries, I see it tum to black

interrupt ml e, you sing with strident voice your certainty

in drying stains and patches all around you and on mly

of triumph over mly death, you do not heed mly sobs,

body, I see the dark blood emerge from the blue of your

you drag mle to the surface of the earth where the sun

veins, in places it is congealed violet, 1 am illuminated

is visible. Only there at the exit towards the trees and the

by the gold and black of your eyes, I do not seek m/y

forest do you tum to face mle with a bound and it is

life from you, I follow you closely, 1 hear your most

true that looking into your eyes I revive with prodigious

precious blood as it leaves you, it makes a lancinating

speed.

fabled music mly adored one to which your voice and

mline do not contribute.

You are exsanguinated. All your blood tom forcibly from

your limbs issues violently from your groins carotid arms

temples legs ankles, the arteries are crudely severed, it

20

21

Your hair is all black and shining. In the space between

your long jaws teeth exposed 1 recognize your ambiguous

infinite smile. Your tall ears move and quiver. M/y hand

placed on your sweat-covered flank excites a bristling of

your skin. 1 run light fingers down the length of your

spine or else m/y hands bury themselves in your coat. 1

Happy if like Ulyssea 1 might return from a long voyage.

touch your finn breasts, 1 squeeze them in m/y hand.

The island's approaches are signalled to m/e before day

You stand upright on your paws one of them intermitbreak. At news of land all the women stand and prepare tently scratching the ground. Your head weighs on the

themselves. Not one wears the previous day's garments.

nape of m/y neck, your canines gash m/y flesh where it

The traYs of perfume are laid out on the decks. There is

is most sensitive, you hold m/ e between your paws, you

sandalwood there is amber there is benzoin there is musk

constrain m/e to lean on m/y elbows, you make m/e

there is I opoponax. They mix them with oils before

turn m/y back to you, your breasts press against m/y

spreading them over their sun-tanned skins. The trees to

bare skin, 1 feel your hairs touching m/y buttocks at the

port and starboard are sprinkled wiped clean leaf by leaf.

height of your clitoris, you climb on m / e, you rip off

Some of the women attach streamers to them with the

m/y skin with the claws of your four paws, a great sweat

colours of the island. The masts too are laden with

comes over m/e hot then soon cold, a white foam spreads

decorations. All the musical instruments are laid out on

the length of your black chops, 1 tum around, 1 clutch

the deck. In the background 1 attempt to recreate your

at your coat, 1 take your head between m/y hands, 1

face feature by feature, 1 remain silent in the joy of m/y

speak to you, your great tongue passes over m /y eyes,

heart. But no 1 am well aware that 1 am not part of this

you lick m/y shoulders breasts arms belly vulva thighs,

voyage, 1 am on land in the most inhospitable land that

a moment comes \v,'hen frenziedly you take m/e on your

exists that which does not contain you, the land you have

back m/y she-wolf m/y arms round your neck m/y

left to make your way elsewhere. M/y feet are heavy

breasts m/y belly against your fur m/y legs gripping

when 1 go to the port in the evening. No sunset m/y

your flanks m/y sex thrusting against your loins, you

living one will illuminate the board where the name of

begin to gallop.

your ship will be inscribed. 1 can tear from m/y forehead

the violet bandeau that signals m/y liberty so dearly

bought as for you all m/y dearest ones 1 ask you if you

love m/e to let m/e die one night far away in the sea.

22

M/y most delectable one 1 set about eating you, m/y

stirred by the wind your teeth bared and clenched with

tongue moistens the helix of your ear delicately gliding

exertion your eyes regarding mle from afar. You wear

around, m/y tongue inserts itself in the auricle, it touches

buckled on your bare hips the sword the women brought

the antihelix, m/y teeth seek the lobe, they begin to gnaw

to red heat in the fire before giving it to you, the one 1

at it, m/y tongue gets into your ear canal. 1 spit, 1 fill you

see you brandish from time to time above your head to

with saliva. Having absorbed the external part of your

keep off one or other hideous monster which springs up

ear 1 burst the tympanum, 1 feel the rounded hammerto slacken your advance. Rapture fills ml e to see you so bone rolling between mly lips, mly teeth crush it, 1 find

prodigiously shoot forth your body wafting gusts of perthe anvil and the stirrup-bone, 1 crunch them, 1 forage fume towards mle on the air-currents on this side and

with my fingers, 1 wrench away a bone, 1 fall on the

that pouring cataracts of sandalwood ginger hellebore

superb cochlea bone and membrane all wrapped round

and green; daisies. 1 see you, you come towards ml e with

together, 1 devour them, 1 burst the semicircular canals,

adorable precipitancy, orange flashes coming from your

1 ignore the mastoid, 1 make an opening into the maxilla,

breasts surround you, series of suns are setting in gold

1 study the interior of your cheek, 1 look at you from

green saffron. Your very precise very soft very strident

inside yourself, 1 lose m/yself, 1 go astray, 1 am poisoned

voice reaches ml e sooner than 1 catch sight of you causby you who nourish ml e, 1 shrivel, 1 become quite small, ing mle to tremble with impatience, while mly feet are

now 1 am a fly, 1 block the working of your tongue,

rooted in the ground, while 1 am paralysed by the sudvainly you try to spit mle out, you choke, 1 am a denness of your advent, after some confusion 1 rapidly

prisoner, 1 adhere to your pink and sticky palate, 1 apply

experience vertigo, mly eyelids start to flutter incessantly

mly suckers to your delicious uvula.

over mly eyeballs, fluttering lids are born beneath mly

hair in the depths of mly brain, weakness takes mly

hamstrings forcing mle to bend mly knees, already you

descend in a sustained hissing, already you stand right

beside ml e, already your hands fall on mly shoulders

pressing down on ml e steadying m/ e before you, already

we are face to face now and for ever so be it.

Glorious will be the day when you come to meet mle

feet together ankles joined thrusting the clouds away

from the depths of the sky with your arms your hair

24

Great fragments of gelatine become detached trembling

transparent. The parted lips tyrian pink on the inside let

the fragments pallS in ever-increasing numbers. The

fingers caught in the flux move slightly elongate relax

draw their tips along the lips move straighten out palpate

the mucous membranes with dawdling movements. The

flow becomes continuous, the foamy juice whitened in its

I start to tremble without being able to stop, you m/y

eddies rises to the shoulders, the head emerging hair

iniquitous one m/y inquisitress you do not release m/e,

spread out cheeks pale. Now the fingers tap continuously

you insist that I talk, fear grips m/e m/y hair is shaken,

on the membranes. An agitation disturbs the flow of

the soft hemispheres of m/y brain the dura mater the

transparent juice fluid water. Abundant salty tears are

cerebellum move within m/y cranium, m/y tongue uvula

shed into the flow, I drown, the water re-enters by m/y

jaws quiv�, I cannot keep m/y lips closed, m/y teeth

eyes juice tears, in it I see blacks golds lights crystals

chatter, m/y arteries throb in furious jerks in m/y neck

scales. I am seized with a great disturbance, m/y ears are

groins heart, m/y eyes are compressed by their orbits,

lifted, buzzing bruised concussed. The fingers form paIms

m/y intestines lurch, m/y stomach turns over, the moveto swim extended on either side of the great masses, they ment spreads to all m/y muscles, the trapezii deltoids

touch make contact grasp each other, the window opens

pectorals adductors sartorii the internals the externals

abruptly under the thrust of our limbs floating on a great

are all shaken by spasms, the bones of m/y legs knock

body of bluish lactic liquid, the water rises iodized transagainst each other when you do not steady them you lucent, it reaches the topmost branches of the last visible

wretch, there is a prodigious acceleration of movement

trees, it beats warmly against the legs of the swimming

to the point where freed from. gravity I rise up, I mainwomen, submerged up to m/y facial orifices I see that tain m/yself at your eye-level, then you m/y most

the liquid mass continues to increase with suspended

infamous one you chase m/ e brutally while I fall speechmucus pearly elastic filaments, the golds the reds now less, you hunt m/e down m/y most fierce one, you

have the same colour and consistence as the clouds, the

constrain m/e to cry out, you put words in m/y mouth,

rising wave debouches in the sky, farewell black continent

you whisper them in m/y ear and I say, no mistress, no

of misery and suffering farewell ancient cities we are

for pity's sake, do not sell m/e, do not put m/e in irons,

embarking for the shining radiant isles for the green

do not make m/y eyeballs burst, deign to call off your

Cytheras for the dark and gilded Lesbos.

dogs, 1 beg you, spare m/e for just a moment longer.

THE LESBIAN BODY THE JUICE THE

SPITTLE THE SALIVA THE SNOT

THE SWEAT THE TEARS THE WAX

Spores start from your epidennis. Your pores produce

THE URINE THE FAECES THE

them in thousands, 1 watch the tiny explosions, 1 see

how the spores descend at the end of hairy filamentl!

EXCREMENTS THE BLOOD THE

without becoming detached from them, the stalks shoot,

LYMPH THE JELLY THE WATER

the sporeS develop and become rounded, the innumer

THE CHYLE THE CHYME THE

able spheres clashing together create stridences clickings

HUMOURS THE SECRETIONS THE

aeolian harp vibrations. Slowly you stand erect your

PUS THE DISCHARGES THE SUPa.nns extended before you your thighs rigid your entire

body in movement, you move forward supported by the

PURATIONS THE BILE THE JUICES

flight of the spheres expanding in the air. Your every

THE ACIDS THE FLUIDS THE

movement produces a harmony of sounds which make

FLUXES THE FOAM THE SULPHUR

the ears shift in all directions. 1 follow you, 1 move for

THE UREA THE MILK THE

ward in your gigantic shadow scaled down prolonged by

the spheres. In thousands they blur your outline or else

ALBUMEN THE OXYGEN THE

make it appear stippled when they catch the sun in the

FLATULENCE THE POUCHES THE

course of their gyrations. At each of your strides you

PARIETES THE MEMBRANES THE

pass above several women walking. Your matchless music

PERITONEUM, THE OMENTUM,

fixes them on the spot, then one or other seized with con

THE PLEURA THE VAGINA THE

vulsions falls in a heap to the ground. Some begin to

shriek. You superb you do not halt. 1 have difficulty

VEINS THE ARTERIES THE VESSELS

in following you. Now 1 run beneath you, your jostling

THE NERVES

spheres gleaming in the sun give m/ e vertigo but breathless as 1 am 1 laugh freely, 1 announce you to the immobilized ones that they may watch your coming, 1

baptise you for centuries of centuries, 110 be it.

29

at this moment I see the tears flood your cheeks, they

spurt straight from your eyes striking m/e on the forehead on the chest, a burning river spreads over m/e vile joy and suffering you perceive m/e, you hear m/e,

you are living in this living stone at m/y mouth, I lay

Why execrable foolish one m/y dearly beloved have you

m/yself at your feet m/y statue though you are without

turned yourseH into stone when I love you so tenderly?

smell and taste. I appeal to the goddess that they should

Your chestnut hair has the stiffness of lead wires, your

change m/e into stone m/y flank joined to your flank,

brown eyes are the glass balls of a statue, in an attempt

they kno,¥ since Sappho has written it for eternity that

to restor!: you to life I dash m/y head against your hard

Latone and Niobe love each other with a tender love.

breasts, blood does not flow in your veins, air does not

enter your lungs, the bile lymph bone-marrow nervous

connections have all come to a halt, your vulva so

pleasing to hold in m/y hands no longer quivelS, your

labia are rigid, your clitoris is a hard kernel, the walls

of your vagina are shut tight and sealed. Thus it is for

this crime that women have hunted m/e separated m/e

from you to silence m/y adorable voice for you for ever.

You did not wait for m/e when I was seeking you every

I see your bones covered with flesh the iliacs the kneewhere, I travelled all the islands asking if anyone had news caps the elbows the shoulders. I remove the muscles

of you. The frost the blazing sun hunger thirst the lacercautiously so as not to damage them, I take each one tions of m/y limbs m/y back the long desire for you the

between mly fingers the long muscles the round muscles

bitter privation, I cannot tell them to you since your

the short muscles, I pull, I tear them by their fibres from

ears are of stone, what have I done to these hateful ones

their bones, I pile them in a heap each fragment moving

what have you done to them that they should take such

slightly quivering when I put it down. I gradually extract

decisive action, is it poodble that not one of them can

the bone, I see it appear pearly white with reddish shreds,

change it, I am without arms without hands without

I lick it, I caress it, I pumice it to polish it, I wait till it

legs without sex by your side deprived of m/y life the

has a pleasing shine, I watch it in its silence, I hear all the

beating of m/y heart I tell m/yself in vain that you are

cries its laying bare has cost ml e horror joy profound

the most adorable of statues. And yet m/y stone lover

sadness, I regard your skeleton separated from the sacs

30

31

the humours the viscera the hair the cheeks the mouth

their droppings now after the disappearance of the entire

the eyes day of nightmare the eyes the vulva so much

colony. You laugh, you make jokes about the metaalive, 1 feel great pity for it and a still greater love, 1

morphosis of turtle-doves into monkeys, you speak of the

admire the delicacy of the metacarpals and the phalanges

fall of their wings of the scarlet wings fallen from the

of the fingers, 1 touch the ribs so adorably contrived, 1

nests, you speak of the f�te of the mutant monkeys at the

am seized with desire for you, 1 drool, 1 weep, the blood

base of the trees, you relate how you seized hold of them

exerts pressure in the ventricles of mly heart, your bones

by surprise, how deprived of wings and having hardly

all dry polished white bare enter mly vision, 1 touch

tried out their limbs they were unable to escape you. The

them, confused 1 lie down on them.

monkeys lregard you bewildered by the cries exclamations

howls la�ghter outbursts of voices.

You look at m/e. M/y knees give way, 1 make you the

sign, then you let yourself fall in the water, you swim

The women come running down the hili, most of them

across your white soaked transparent tunic suddenly

hold in their arms a small white she-monkey with large

appearing the colour of your skin the rapidity of >,?ur

grey eyes with well-shaped ears. Some of them have stiff

movements producing a disturbance in the water a glimpigtails attached to their necks. They utter loud cries aa mer at the level of your shoulderblades, your monkey

they paas under the apple-trees laden with red fruit. The

clinging mutely to your hair. 1 come to meet you, 1 reach

little monkeys seize the apples they are given with both

you well on this side of the middle of the river our bellies

hands. Their eyes blink, they look here and there unour arms touching a little of your saliva trickling into certainly. The meeting-place occurs on either side of the

mly mouth. You attempt to wrench the little monkey

river. The women of mly group interrogate those of

from your hair to give her to ml e. But she begins to u�ter

yours in a very loud voice. You were supposed to return

strident cries clinging on with her four paws, descending

with green-collared wild turtle-doves. We have none of

to your neck to claap it with both arms A boat passes

.

3�

33

close by seeking the women carrying the monkeys. The

raucousness issuing from mly throat and mly parted

woman ceases rowing balancing the oars horizontally.

lips, a purple mist passes before m/y gaze, the darkness

You lie down behind her in the bottom of the boat. The

of your eyes touches mle engulfs mle, you appear pale,

little white monkey is seated between us. You suggest

you become blurred, you become terribly diaphanous,

calling her Chloe. Above the sides of the boat the already

mly fingers make holes in you in various places m/y

sombre sky is visible, then the tops of the trees and the

mere surface mly so flat one mly depthless one mly

hill when we approach welcomed by shouts songs laughveil of Lesbos your face all flat painted on the linen of ter. Your palm m/y best beloved separates from mly

Veronica like the anguished features of Christa the muchpalm.

crucified.

Fire fire fire even to the tendon of Achillea, the wellnamed she who so loved Patroclea. Indeed the muscles all catch fire simultaneously the trapezii deltoids pectorals

There is no trace of you. Your face your body your

serrati obliques recti adductors sartorii psoas. The fireball

silhouette are lost. In your place there is a void. In mly

spreads between the ribs launching its eight octopus arms

body there is a pressure at the level of the belly at the

one tentacle gripping at once the ventricles and auricles of

level of the thorax. There is a weight on mly chest.

the heart another squeezing the aorta and the pulmonary

Initially these phenomena are intensely painful. Because

arteries, the plexus is caught, it burns slowly, the burnt

of them 1 seek you but without knowing it. For instance,

intestines disintegrate right to the tips of their villosities

1 walk beside the sea, mly entire body is sick, mly throat

innumerable as they may be, their unwinding coils rest

does not allow mle to speak, 1 see the sea, 1 gaze at it,

on m/y abdominal wall, mly clitoris touched by one of

1 search, I question m/yself in the silence in the lack of

the mouths is an intense irradiant irradiant sun, it creates

traces, 1 question an absence so strange that it makes a

the blowing of a forge from top to bottom of mly body

hole within mly body. Then 1 know in absolutely in-

34

35

fallible fashion that 1 am in need of you, 1 require your

undersides with m I y beak, a slight moisture comes to

presence, 1 seek you, 1 implore you, 1 summon you to

mly two respiratory orifices. Among the down 1 touch

appear you who are featureless without hands breasts

the delicate skin, 1 peck at it, you submit, then you stiffen

belly vulva limbs thoughts, you at the very moment when

briskly flapping your wings snapping your beak attemptyou are nothing more than a pressure an insistence within ing a cry. Then 1 furrow your entire neck. 1 sow disorder

mly body. You lie on the sea, you enter mle by the eyes,

in the arrangement of your feathers, 1 tum them the

you arrive in the air 1 breathe, 1 summon you to show

wrong way, 1 destroy their sleekness. 1 try to force you

yourself, 1 solicit you to emerge from this non-presence

down inithe water by pressing with mly whole body on

which engulfs you. Your eyes perhaps are phosphorescent,

the back of yours. You resist. At a given moment you

your lips are pale mly much desired one, you torment

consent to glide with only head and neck emerging, 1 see

mle with a slow love.

them suddenly struck by the glare of the light. Of your

body 1 perceive nothing a blackness merging with the

black waters. 1 commence a long descent mly neck

entwining your neck dragging you dragging you down

to the golden thickness of the mud from which we cannot extricate ourselves because of our firm entanglement.

1 experience the song of the black swans, at the dark

hour of their death.

Two black swans swim in the solitary lake. The golden

light of the setting sun has veiled the waters. The two

swans glide gently side by side, you with bent head 1

ready to support the fall of your neck to touch the curve

of your breast with mly beak. Your eyes are golden, they

do not regard ml e. You allow yourself to fall behind,

M/y clitoris mly labia are touched by your hands.

then unhurriedly you rejoin mle your flank touching

Through mly vagina and mly uterus you insert yourself

mly flank, all mly feathers ruffle to the top of mly skull.

breaking the membrane up to mly intestines. Round

1 have forgotten the swans' cry of victory when they

your neck you place mly duodenum pale-pink wellmove toward the shade to rest after a day without comveined with blue. You unwind mly yellow small intesbat. You spread your wings over m I e. 1 search their tine. So doing you speak of the odour of mly damp

36

37

organs, you speak of their consistence, you speak of their

tion when I hear your voice saying to mle that I may

movements, you speak of their temperature. At this point

not come, that they are determined to prevent ml e in

you attempt to wrench out m/y kidneys. They resist you.

every way. I stay sitting weeping in the ditch, I look at

You touch m/y green gallbladder. I have a deathly

the sun between the clumps of great foxgloves, it no

chill, I moan, I fall into an abyss, m/y head is awhirl,

longer appears pleasingly mauve, I roll in the nettles,

m/y heart is in m/y mouth, it feels as if mly blood is all

mly whole body is covered with blisters, a sweat of blood

congealed in mly arteries. You say nevertheless that you

traverses mly pores reddening the grass all round. I hear

receive an enonnous quantity of it on your hands. You

the sound of the sea against the cliffs of the island. I canspeak of the colour of mly organs. I cannot see them. I not raise mly eyes to look at the village even from a

hear your voice hissing in mly ears, I concentrate on

distance, without their being at once burned reddened

listening to you. I see m/yself stretched out, all mly

affected by a bundle of white rays whose origin is unentrails are unwound. I open mly mouth to sing a known to m/e. M/y hair torn out by handfuls lies in

cantata to the goddess mly mother. M/y heart fails in

heaps beside m/e. M/y cries mly shrieks mly ululations

this effort. I open mly mouth, I admit your lips your

make your dogs shiver, they are at bay, I hear them

tongue your palate, I prepare to die by your side adored

whimpering, or else one or the other starts to howl at

monster while you cry incessantly about mly ears.

death in broad daylight. But whatever the impatience I

provoke among them by mly presence, they cannot prevent mle from remaining here, they cannot compel mle to move to a place where mly voice would reach none

of you, I do not even speak of you mly best-beloved, in

mly ignorance of their actions, of their power which

restrains you from running towards mle and raising mle

up by the elbows, or else it must be that your blood is

stopped in your veins by their activities, or else it is the

case that you are pitiless towards m I e putting m I e to a

severe test making use of them to prevent mle from

I am laid under an interdict in the city where you live.

joining you immune to my sobs mouth closed blind and

I have no right to go there. The women lOO6e your dogs

superbly immured in yourself.

on m/e when I approach. Everything is denied mle,

even the right of asylum. I am overwhelmed by despera.

38

39

Your bare feet touch the blue calyces of the anemones

as you walk. The pink violet white yellow snapdragons

come to your calves, some as far as your thighs. Scarlet

orange yellow dahlias come up to your shoulders. The

THE PLEXUSES THE GLANDS THE

crushed violet irises leave long stains on the inward of

your arms. You advance along an ultramarine avenue.

GANGLIA THE LOBES THE

The bees bumble-bees butterflies expelled from the corol

MUCOSAE THE TISSUES THE

las you seize in passing surround you. Rays of sunlight

CALLOSITIES THE BONES THE

traversing the trees touch your lips your hair your pubic

CARTILAGE THE OSTEOID THE

hair creating a dazzling effect. The shaken lilies amaryllis

arums loSe the pollen from their pistils, it is yellow on

CARIES THE MATTER THE MARROW

your legs and on your feet, [ see it, [ see you naked in a

THE FAT THE PHOSPHORUS THE

drift of cut flowers red white black tulips mauve asters

MERCURY THE CALCIUM THE

pink yellow columbines orange marigolds blue white pink

GLUCOSES THE IODINE THE

violet michaelmas daisies pink pale-blue ultramarine

cornflowers tawny brown

ORGANS THE BRAIN THE HEART

scarlet yellow white madderred chrysanthemums, [ see you, you roll over and over,

THE LIVER THE VISCERA THE

you rub your cheeks your belly your sex against the

VULVA THE MYCOSES THE

flower-heads, you seize them in fistfuls to cover yourself,

FERMENTATIONS THE VILLOSITIES

the insects fly off buzzing around you, you laugh with

THE DECAY THE NAILS THE TEETH

mouth wide open, slowly you rock to and fro, you fall

backward, you disappear completely one or other arm

THE HAIRS THE HAIR THE SKIN

emerging momentarily, or there may be glimpsed the

THE PORES THE SQUAMES THE

bulge of a thigh or the white gleam of your belly or your

PELLICULES THE SCURF THE SPOTS

curved throat or the hair you toss alI mingled with the

flower-stalks, [look at you, [ am unable to stir, [ struggle,

[ am unable to reach you monster.

strike you in the belly the pubis so that you tum your

face to the ground before m/e m/y so frightened one

m/y so troubled one your eyes closed your hands over

your ears, crying to m/ e for mercy in such wise that

ultimately I can lift you at arm's length to m/y mouth,

Am I not Zeyna the all-powerful she who shakes her

that ultimately I can laugh in your ears, that ultimately

mane and grasps the lightnings in her hand? I see

I can tum you round and bite you in the hollow of your

m/yseH seated rigidly before abundantly laden tables

loins mly goddess m/y so caIlipygous one mly adored.

refusing all the victuals the women offer m/ e calling for

the drinks of Ganymedea the absent. At last you emerge

hurriedly from the avenue of cherry-trees in the midst of

the feast flushed breathless two amphorae supported on

your straight hips eager to serve all the women who await

you dry-throated, but it is by m / e that you first halt. I

look at the trickle of sweat between your breasts and your

lifted arms the curled damp tufts of your armpits lit by

the sun, I grasp your straight unwaisted torso between

The temperature of the island. cools. A great wind takes

m/y hands, you with a twist of the loins slipping from

hold of us, we are flung down. I see you dragged along

my clutch pouring a great quantity of wine into my cup.

the shingle of the beach by a violent blast, I clutch hold

Your eyes are hidden by their lids, no blush comes to

of you, I struggle with something an enormous flapping

your cheeks when I ask you to sit beside m/ e, your eyes

wing with invisible claws a kind of thing of immeasurdo not see m/e, your ears do not hear m/e, the order of able strength engaged in dragging you away, I beat the

your gestures is undisturbed, then the fire of m/y lightair, I seize you round the waist, you spin round and nings expands in m/y breast ravaging m/y lungs m/y

round, you fly off raised from the ground, you carry m/e

ribs m/y shoulderblades m/y breasts, m/y hands seizing

with you, with your arms firmly grasping m/ine you pull

them to thunder from the height of m/y anger, mute

ml e, you exert traction on ml e, your teeth are clenched,

indifferent barely smiling you go and come soundlessly,

your hair is shaken out around your head, the thing seeks

you do not kiss the nape of m/y neck when you pass

to reach your cheeks, I fight it without finding it, it lashes

behind m/e. A growling rises in m/y throat, a rumbling

your shoulders, the skin of your back becomes striped

develops in the cloudless sky, m/y lightnings shaken forth

with long purplish marks. I am filled with hatred, I clasp

42

43

you with all mly might, you do not let go of mle, you

1 look at you mly unique one. You agitate the collectivity

hold mle upright before you, you are on your back lying

of your vibratile cilia all over your surface. 1 approach

in the foul thing that cannot be seen, you become disyour flagella, m I y palms barely come into contact with articulated, your bones in collision your muscles breaking

them and withdraw. A violent movement traverses you.

off as they come up against each other, one of your legs

All your whips retract and begin to whirl, 1 do not flinch

falls tom off from the pelvis, you lose strength, you

when at the next moment they fall brutally on mly

weaken, ouly your strong and powerful hands your arms

shoulders. The movements occur by helical rotations, 1

inured to exertion continue carrying ml e, 1 try to flatten

am touched only cyclically. Despite your gigantic size

m I yself against you, 1 try to envelop you, an immense

the length of your flagella and the speed of their propulrepellent force keeps m I e at a distance, 1 cry your name, sion you touch ml e with great gentleness, the silk of your

1 shriek with lips plastered to mly teeth and jaws, the

cilia makes ml e shiver from head to feet. In the furrow

sound of mly voice is shaky barely audible, 1 try to reach

of your cilia 1 perceive your wide-open mouth. The

your chest and waist with mly hands, the second leg

slightest shock-wave traverses you entirely. Nowhere

falls off thigh tom and separated from the tibia and

within you is there a neutral circuit. 1 plug m/yseJf into

fibula at the knee-joint, you hold your head up with

you, instantly your composition changes, you assume a

great difficulty, you struggle against the thing's movenew shape appearance colour, a passer-by returning from ments, now there is a gigantic eddy, you waver your

her walk would not recognize you. You move your mass

arms extended with increasing difficulty no longer able

away from the point 1 touch when mly fingers brush

to support m I e, a violent gust attacks your iliac bones.

against you. The more you advance precipitately towards

mle the more you recoil rapidly and move away. Or else

you begin to spin on yourself in every direction. You are

agitated throughout by a disturbance, you hurl yourself

against the membrane which forms a aac all round you.

At a given moment you change direction, you project

yourself abruptly towards mle, all at once your bulk

surrounds ml e burdening mly limbs your flagella descending the length of mly back your mouth applied to mly throat, it's then my fine protozoan mly green infusarium mly violent vorticella that slowly drawn in by the suction of your mouth 1 faint away.

44

45

Unnameable one you buzz in mly ears, the sound

You are face to face with mle sphinx of clay, as I follow

spreads with celerity beyond the cochlea, it gains the

you eyeless grey crouched over m/e. The movements are

cerebellum, it strikes the cerebral hemispheres, it insinueffected noiselessly, in a broad pale nocturnal space feet ates itself the whole length of the scalp so that I bristle

touchingl the ground a clearing of chalky aspect where

with horror, it descends the spinal cord, it hammers mly

the two shapes squat observing each other insubstantial

ribs, it traverses m Iy lungs, I pant, I shudder. I tremble.

phantoms, or else moving among the clouds of the sky

I cannot keep mly mouth closed, I cry to you, I call to

in the white-coloqred substance of the atmosphere. From

you, you unnameable unnamed, she whose name I may

somewhere comes a long sigh a groan a moan a whimper

not utter she whose unnameable name pronounced by

a lamentation. The two shapes removed from each other

mle makes the wasps leave their hives, they are on mle

begin to stir. I know by heart the place where you are,

in swarms, they blind ml e, they strike ml e with their

thus it is I make mly way in your direction without

bodies as they fall on ml e, they stab ml e with their stings

making the least halt yet without being able to see or

in thousands, they stun ml e with their infernal buzzing,

hear you. Fear comes to mle immobilizing m/e. You

they enter mly ear-passages, they penetrate ml e, they

likewise halt. A wind passes vigorously shaking the trees

burst mly eardrums, they obstruct mly sinuses, they

at the edge of the field and the flimsy bushes round

inject the poison of their stings into mly tissues, they

about. There is an ululation. The two barely visible

insert your anger into m I e, cruel unnameable one call

shapes are recumbent behind a row of shrubs. Quite a

off your wasps, I beg for mercy, I am utterly consumed,

space separates them the sum of several jets of spittle.

long long is the fire, the poison-hoarding white demons

Their faces are indistinct confused at times with the

have envenomed ml e in your name, now I hate you mly

general greyish light of the place. Or else when they bemost unnameable one, not once I swear to you will I come clear they are covered with a kind of hood identical

utter your name.

with that worn by a falcon at the wrist. Then among

their bulks there occur translations stirrings writhings

swayings even glidings. I begin to sway before You while

you are in suspense. I am taken with the desire to enter

47

into the darkness of your body your face your limbs. A

poppies appear in many places. Through your parted lips

hissing is audible. A continuous vibration traverses m/y

comes the sound of a barely audible modulated song. 1

body. [ approach you by fits and starts, when at last [

see your teeth when your lips retract. The dark holes of

touch you or else it's you who does it a disturbance shakes

your eyes are turned toward the horizon sky or sea no

m/ e, the shock is simultaneously conveyed to you, [ colline marking the interval between the two. Your stiffened lapse from head to feet. At the moment when they come

steaming hair is stretched straight over your head behind

together the two sphinxes disintegrate completely, their

your ears on each side. A white vapour issues from it on

masses crumble cave in founder totter grains of sand on

all sides and envelops you down to the feet concealing

grains of sand a heap very quickly forming first the heads

the shape of your body. Sometimes in their movements

disappearing in a flash the shoulders collapsing inunediyour arms your hands make holes in the thickness of this at�y afterwards in the same · movement, you cease to

mist, [ see their gentle motions. The soles of your feet

CXJSt m/y most shadowed one m/y most silent one [ likeyour heels are not placed on the ground. You maintain wise.

yourself slightly above the surface resting on the air, you

move by glidings which seem to operate without your

stirring. You are mute save for this feeble rather shrill

modulation reaching m/y ears from time to time. You

are seized by great activity. [ see you abreast of the

rounded bulk in the middle of the cornfield the wild rosebush assuredly laden with red flowers visible in broad daylight. Contrariwise [ see you suddenly above the sea

where you stay motionless, [ do not perceive you, you

have passed beyond the curve of the beach, the clamour

The reflection of the moon on the sea has not been visible

of your voice is perceptible to m/ e. A sudden breeze stirs

for a long time. A feeble white slightly bluish light

the cornfield, ruffles m/y hair, you are behind m/e, [ am

smooths the confused contours of island sea land sky.

harshly aware of your presence, your breath is warm on

The five black bitches lying half-submerged in the water

the nape of m/y neck, the whiteness of the light is

on the sand slowly begin to get up opening their mouths

dazzling now, the water of the sea shines milky barely

wide shaking their fur stretching their paws their large

moving, the pale ears of com appear, you are erect before

ears pricked up on their heads. The fields of com whose

m/e m/y most radiant one carrying the white sword of

last row sprouts in the sea are uncut, the dark splashes of

the morning your body suddenly emerged from its mist

48

49

your strong legs visible and the soles of your feet, you

We descend directly legs together thighs together arms

draw back and advance on m/e tall shining your cheeks

entwined m/y hands touching your shoulders m/y

adazzle. It is only mly most powerful one when one of

shoulders held by your hands breast against breast open

the women over there sings the first song of the day that

mouth against open mouth, we descend slowly. The sand

you descend to step away, 1 throwing m/yself to the

swirls round our ankles, suddenly it surrounds our calves.

ground clasping your knees laughter traversing m/y

It's from then on that the descent is slowed down. At the

lungs.

moment your knees are reached you throw back your

head, 1 see your teeth, you smile, later you look at ml e

you speak to m/e without interruption. Now the sand

presses 01iL the thighs. 1 shiver with gooseflesh, 1 feel your

skin stirrjng, your nails dig into m/y shoulders, you look

at ml e, >i0U do not stop looking at ml e, the shape of your

cheeks is! changed by the greatest concern. The engulfment continues steadily, the touch of the sand is soft against m/y legs. You begin to sigh. When 1 am sucked

You are mly glory of cyprine mly tawny lilac purple

down to m/y thighs 1 start to cry out, in a few moments

one, you pursue m/e throughout m/y tunnels, your wind

1 shall be unable to touch you, m/y hands on your

bursts in, you blow in m/y ears, you bellow, your cheeks

shoulders your neck will be unable to reach your vulva,

are flushed, you are m/yself you are m/yself (aid ml e

anguish grips ml e, the tiniest grain of sand between your

Sappho) you are m/yself, 1 die enveloped girdled supbelly and mline can separate us once for all. But you ported impregnated by your hands infiltrated suave flux

fierce joyfnl eyes shining hold ml e against you, you press

infiltrated by the rays of your fingers from labia to throat,

mly back with your large hands, l begin to throb in m/y

m/y ears affected liquefy, 1 fall 1 fall, 1 drag you down

eyelids, 1 throb in m/y brain, 1 throb in m/y thorax, 1

in this fall this hissing spiral, speak to ml e accursed

throb in mly belly, 1 throb in m/y clitoris while you

adored eddying maelstrom torment of pleasure joy joy

speak faster and faster clasping ml e 1 clasping you clasptears of joy, 1 drag you down, your arms twined round ing each other with a marvellous strength, the sand is

m/e embrace two bodies lost in the silence of the infinite

round our waists, at a given moment your skin splits

spheres, what am I, can anyone standing at her window

from throat to pubis, mline in tum from below upwards,

say that she sees m/e pass, gentle muzzled suckling-Iamb

1 spill m/yself into you, you mingle with ml e mly mouth

cat 1 spit you out 1 spit you out.

fastened on your mouth your neck squeezed by mly

50

51

anns, 1 feel our intestines uncoiling gliding among themselves, the sky darkens suddenly, it contains orange gleams, the outflow of the mingled blood is not perceptible, the most severe shuddering affects you affects mle both together, collapsing you cry out, 1 love you mly

dying one, your emergent head is for mle most adorable

THE AREOLAS THE ECCHYMOSES

and most fatal, the sand touches your cheeks, mly mouth

THE WOUNDS THE FOLDS THE

is filled.

GRAZES THE WRINKLES THE

BLISTERS THE FISSURES THE

SWELLINGS THE SUNBURN THE

BEAUTY-SPOTS THE BLACKHEADS

THE HAIR FOLLICLES THE WARTS

THE EXCRESCENCES THE PAPULES

1 return to the city of night. The hot perfumes of the

THE SEBUM THE PIGMENTATION

flowers spread in coloured mists above the gardens. 1

THE EPIDERMIS THE DERMIS THE

stroll at mly ease. Some snatches of song are heard

CUTANEOUS NERVES THE INNERcoming from the terraces. Suddenly at one side of the

avenues 1 perceive trickles of your blood. It flows making

VATIONS THE PAPILLAE THE

a small noise, 1 recognize it, its colour leaps to mly eyes,

NERVE NETWORKS THE NERVEthere is no other like it. Exactly parallel in a gentle wave

ROOTS THE BUNDLES THE

flows the white of your eyes. 1 can no longer stand up

BRANCHES THE PLEXUSES THE

right. An opaque blackish haze comes before mly eyes.

MOTOR NERVES THE SENSORY THE

M/y ears buzz. Something that feels like a rasp adheres

to mly lungs. In the end 1 begin to run. The pain makes

CERVICAL THE PNEUMOGASTRIC

mly eyeballs start from their orbits. 1 bend down repeatedly to pick them up groping in the sand of the main avenue. 1 cry out with impatience, 1 search on mly knees,

1 must wipe them before putting them back in place.

52

53

Whoever has dared lay hands on you, let her show herlook at ml e uttering insults. The place you enter is dark, seH, let her curse the day she was born. I run I run imcoming in from the sun one cannot distinguish anything ploring you not to die, mly feet sink into the sand, they

even though the lights are lit. A woman brings low tables

can barely be lifted to carry ml e, I go towards the

laden with victuals. I invite you to eat. You do not say a

sacrificial stone, the moon is not yet visible, it's not

word. You sit down. You begin to eat. I sit opposite you

possible that you are already dead. I am moved to cast

regard mle fixedly erect head high a half-smile on your

m/yself down on the sand of the avenue because of a

lips. I do not tell you who I am. At a given moment two

pain I feel in mly belly. I cry out with rage, calling the

of the women set themselves to wash you. They anoint

giraffes. They are all asleep. Not one comes near mle

you wit4 oils and perfumes of iris, of bergamot, of vetiver,

gambolling so that I may cling to its neck. Day of wrath

of amIHr. Still smi!ing you submit. When you sit down

it were better that you were all dead.

again opposite ml e your chestnut hair glistens, your eyelids are �ered with a glittering powder, your bare breast is bound with the leather straps you have always worn

with ml e, they have fastened identical straps to your

knees round your kneecaps. And yet you continue to look

at mle as at a stranger. Even mly most seductive voice

does not move you when I open mly mouth to question

you on your travels. Later the lights are extinguished

save for a tumed-down lamp. You strictly observe the

island rules of politeness when you come to stretch out

I see you standing in the square filled with sunlight. The

at mly side. That is why mly delectable one I proceed

flies hum over the street-stalls. You tum your back on

with the greatest jubilation when I arm mly fingers with

m/e. Young girls carrying large baskets pass before you.

mly iron nails, when I rake your back and your flanks,

I approach you from behind, I touch your shoulder, you

when at last you tum towards mle crying mly name.

look at mle, I make a sign for you to follow mle, you

do not acknowledge mle, you continue to regard mle as

if I were a stranger. Then two of the women escort you

and drag you fOl'ClDly away. You call for help. No one

comes to your aid. The women continue to come and go

peacefully in the marketplace. You no longer resist. You

54

55

1 am mounted by you bareback. Your thighs grip m/y

flanks. 1 am covered with sweat. The smell of m/y closecropped hair wafts round. 1 feel the slipperiness of your bare perspiring skin. Your arms hold m/e by the neck.

Your breasts your belly are against m/y spine. M/y skin

is agitated by convulsive jerks. You knead m/y muscles

You smile motionless. I am kneeling at the seashore, you,

with your large hands, you speak to ml e, oh so sweetly

you are standing before m/e arms folded, m/y mouth

so sweetly. Then 1 stiffen m/y ears m/y nostrils quiveropens to entreat the divine incomparable Sappho. Glittering. M/y head is shaken tugged like a mane by your ing insects pass at full speed in the light of the setting

hands. 1 see obliquely the tall plants of the banks the

sun. One of them catches in your hair, I hear it buzzing.

grasses in flower the great mauve foxgloves in full

You smile motionless. The first star is visible over where

luxuriance. You dig your heels into m/y belly to spur

dazzling the sun has disappeared. I entreat Sappho she

m/e on. 1 stay put. You strike m/e harder. 1 resist I brace

who gleams more than the moon among the constellam/yseif. Then you arm your heels and your legs. You tions of our heavens. I implore Sappho in a very loud

press into m I e with all your might voice strident, you

voice. I ask Sappho the all-powerful to mark on your

lacerate m/y flanks with your numerous steel spikes, you

forehead as on m/ine the signs of your star. I solicit allflay them, you expose them to the quick, you come and smiling Sappho to exhale over you as over m/e the

go angrily from top to bottom, you cry out, you arm your

breezes which make us pale when we contemplate the sky

hands, you rake m/y neck, you bite ml e at the level of

and night comes. Then I stand beside you facing the sea.

the trapezii, the blood flows over m/y skin from all its

I await the arrival of the comets with their smoky flashes,

orifices, flies in their hundreds settle there devouring ml e.

they are here thanks be to Sappho, the stones of your

Then harassed at every point I launch m I yseif into a

star are fallen, those which marked you above your cheek

furious gallop, m/y hooves violently hammer the ground,

at the level of the temple with a violet seal exactly like

I neigh incessantly, I shriek m/y hair bristling, I bear

m/y own, glory to Sappho for as long as we shall live in

you away. You hold m/e in a very tight grasp, while

this dark continent.

black from head to feet darkness filling m/y eyes I dash

forward while you remove the weapons from your heels

legs hands arms, while you cautiously work your limbs

into m/y wounds.

57

1 have swallowed your ann the weather is clear the sea

wann. The sun enters mly eyes. Your fingers form a fan

in mly oesophagus, then come together to thrust further.

1 struggle against vertigo. Mly optic nerves start under

a very strong pressure. The shimmer of the light on the

waves insults mly entire body. 1 am penetrated endlessly

You are among those women who are feted the last day

by you, you thrust into mle, you impale mle, 1 begin an

of the month the twenty-eighth, those whose periods

extremely slow journey, 1 am thronged by roarings, mly

coincide with that date. The beach is covered with ixia

ears lengthen, they beat furiously at the wood of the deck,

flowers ;uyanged entire because of their violet spikes. Of

they strike the sides of the boat, mly tongue cut against

the others the calyces corollas bulbs scales racemes

mly teeth is carried away as you descend mle, mly vocal

bundles stems pistils petals throats have been tom off and

cords stretched by the passage of your fingers transmit

cast on the sand. There are white red poppies pale blue

no sound, cries propagate themselves within mly arteries

wisteria, pink blue ultramarine clematis blue centauries

incessant siren wailings alann signals. You do not stop.

violets madder pink violet lupins saffron water-lilies

1 perceive within flattened against mly skin the organs

mallows hyacinths arums scarlet amaryllis and many

ranged one beside the other all distended, the green bile

other flowers which 1 do not recognize because of their

makes halos, the stomach hangs emptied of its acid, the

dismemberment. The women walk barefoot their entire

liver resembles a stranded turbot, the spleen has burst,

bodies painted different colours, some are decorated with

but you mly so atrocious intractable implacable one you

designs of butterflies birds or flowers, some jump with

still descend. 1 wait for you to perforate the membrane

feet together on the heaped flowers, they exclaim that

of mly diaphragm, 1 wait for you to touch mly pylorus,

they feel soft underfoot. Most of them excitedly sing and

1 wait for you to thread mly duodenum on your hand,

shout. You alone are silent with no ornament other than

an enormous cry accumulates at the centre around your

your vast rectangular pubic fleece. You advance without

ann, the pressure you exert on the sound-waves finally

evincing impatience or pleasure. You keep your eyelids

makes mle explode, 1 know it by heart mly tormentor

above your eyeballs. You do not look at any one of them.

mly most baleful one, mly shadowy visage sparkling

1 tremble that 1 may not be designated, when at nightfall

with black, the sea closes over m I e, then 1 draw you

the fires are lighted and are reflected in the sea, to lick

down, 1 drag you down, 1 take you with mle foundering.

your blood on the inward of your thighs along your vulva

between your labia within the opposed walls of your

vagina. The lot is cast against mle, 1 am not the one.

59

You regard mle mutely without a smile. It is another

of the anatom y texts. You say m I y beloved that you can

who approaches, grasps your knees squatting on her heels,

:;ee right tlu'ough ml e. You describe to ml e the water

wipes her damp hair against your legs, opens her mouth,

dripping from the leaves of the trees and even their shape

head thrown back regarding you. Immediately I fall flat

and even their colour. It rains on mle, it is a music that

on mly face, mly head violently strikes the ground, I

few feminine ears are in the habit of so hearing. Forgive

am seized by convulsions, mly tears flow so copiously

m I e if I laugh, it is so enervating so terribly enervating

that I cannot see, sobs shake mle as I restrain mly cries.

this rain while you, you fiddle insanely with ml e with

Two of the women raise mle up and take mle away

the very tips of your fingers, I am touched in m I y

singing m/e some song making m/e listen to their flutes

brachial l'erves m I y circumflexes m I y ulnars m I y radials

and tom-toms in the cover of the pine-wood. The resinous

mly terminal branches, I insist on telling you all that

odour makes mle giddy, I feel a jolt in mly liver, mly

that's where it's most exquisite, I am touched in m/y

sobs redouble, on mly cheeks and neck a green vomit

facials ro/y maxillaries, at that point luminous watermingles with mly tears drool saliva, I flee their laughter spouts burst over ml e, I don't know whether it is the

and their songs running as far as the sea into which I

storm outside or messages from m/y brain from the eyes

hurl m/yself shrieking maledictions mly most execrable

that I cannot open, hundreds of orange globes a second

one regretting in loud and strident tones the day I met

depart and reprecipitate there, the intensity is too great,

you here.

I feel I cannot stand it, I faint away, but not before mly

saphenous nerves are touched, who would have believed

it mly Sappho, .not before mly great sciatics begin to

move or mly tibial nerves are seized with uncontrollable

convulsions, not before I speak to you I know not what

name to call you by you who at this moment place your

two whole hands on mly brachial plexuses.

The water makes the network of mly nerves crackle the

brachial plexuses the lumbars the sacral plexuses. Outside,

where the weather is damnable, your hands promptly

operate on m/e. The scalpel deftly manipulated by your

adorable hands has detached retracted the muscles. I am

a spider's web of nerves exactly resembling the drawings

60

61

WE BRACHIALS THE CIRCUM

The wind blows from the sea. Here in the midst of the

FLEXES THE MEDIANS THE ULNARS

fields the gulls settle. I walk along a little road. Night

THE SACRALS THE LUMBARS THE

does not come. I do not look at the sky. When I fall for

SCIATICS THE FEMORALS, THE

the first time the women support ml e under the arms,

with their aid I walk. Loss of consciousness flings m I e to

SAPHENOUSES THE TIBIALS THE

the ground again. I compress m/y lips when they caress

PLANTARS WE PATHETICS THE

m/e and when they ply m/e with questions. I will not

RECURRENTS THE SYMPATHETICS

say your name. It shall not issue borne on the air, it shall

THE CARDIAC THE DIAPHRAGMAnot make its way outside of m/e. I am silent. Now I can

walk no further. I am lying on the bank. The grass

TIC PLEXUS THE BULB THE SPINAL

surrounds m I e scented cool stirred by the wind. I do not

WE FACIALS THE GLOSSOPHARYNlook at the sky. The gradually assembled features of your

GEAL THE OPTICS THE ACOUSTICS

face do not take shape in m/y memory. I do not see

THE OLFACTORIES THE NERVEthe curve of your breast. I have no recollection of your

CELLS THE GLOBULES THE RED

arms your shoulders your back your belly. I am unaware

that your hair when licked has a delectable taste. Your

CORPUSCLES THE LEUCOCYTES

pubic hairs are not visible in their quadrangular fleece,

THE HAEMOGLOBIN THE PLASMA

your slender sex clitoris and hood prolonged by the

WE SERUM THE VENOUS BLOOD

winged labia are not to be seen. I no longer see your

lungs your stomach your bones your blood-vessels. I am

stretched out on the bank. Evening does not come. I ask

you all if you love ml e, forget that I exist.

63

Fatal the day when I go to seek you in the sweet-smelling

by you and frcnziedly devoured, I sce you silently relish

sea your gaze sliding over m/y shoulders and along m/y

some flakes of m/y flesh in your teeth, I've done with

flanks. I approach you quite suddenly, m/y hand touches

watching you m/y eater of ordure m/y most nefarious one

your blue glossy skin, a shudder seizes you from head to

m/y so disquieting one, happy if I can remain a reflection

tail the water agitated furiously all round. I commence

that disturbs your gliding through the water.

a long ululation when your flank adheres to m/y flank,

when I clasp you with both hands m/y legs entwining

you beneath your white belly m/y knees squeezing you

on either side. You drag m/e in your rapid progress, m/y

hair spreads away from m/y head, I do not see the sky

inverted in the depths of the waters. A glaucous light

surrounds you with a green halo. The whites of your eyes

are not to be seen. While I grasp you at the throat m/ y

arms clasped round your neck, I suddenly perceive the

portcullis of your teeth your wide-open mouth. I am

I watch you, I watch you, I cannot refrain from crying

seized by weakness in m/y armpits and m/y limbs. Your

out, your face has become inert, your cheeks pale in the

teeth unclench only to tear m/ e to pieces tearing off now

extreme, sweat forms on the skin of your belly your

an arm now a breast now part of m/y cheek leaving m/y

shoulders your loins, suddenly it covers your brow, your

face denuded of its muscles bones exposed, already I no

hair is damp both in your armpit and at your pubis,

longer have strength to cry out, already m/y blood flows

your lips do not move, they have a fixed smile, your eyes

in long red streaks visible in the water, it makes you all

tum up, your body stiffens, your muscles convulse, your

the more bent on m/y massacre m/y beautiful accursed

hands are clenched, you sigh lengthily, at last you colshark, you reject m/ e despite m/y supplications, and lapse, I am seized throughout with anguish, I shriek, I

retreating into the distance you charge at m/e, m/y head

weep, I shake you, you do not stir, I calI on you by the

splits, I See you more and more immense silent above

sweetest names I can find, I kiss your wrists the inward

m/ e. One of m/y eyes slowly disappears and sinks milkily

of your arms your nape your feet, I cause m/y saliva to

without rotating. You lash m/ e with your tail in your

flow inside your mouth, I eat your hair, I scrape with

comings and goings, m/y face is struck on either side,

m/y teeth at the skin of your cranium, I lick you from

m/y hands no longer able to raise themselves to protect

head to foot mouth slack, m /y tongue licks your knees licks

m/y cheeks, all m/y scattered tom fragments are gathered

your thighs licks your vulva licks your belly licks your

64

65

breasts licks your shoulders licks your neck licks your

the women breathless come to a halt you begin to laugh

chin licks your closed lips, [ take your hands all cold in

very loudly head thrown back the curve of your throat

m/y hands, [ loosen the fingers one by one, [ weep, [

exposed. They put you down without roughness standing

look at you lying beside you, [ am beset with such great

beneath the tree with the slanting trunk an acacia whose

pain and still greater love that [ experience repeated

flowers have a heady perfume. [ am she who has been

orgasms in great agitation, then all alive you look at m I e,

present motionless at the performance. [ throw m/yseH

you laugh, you speak again you most savage of the

at your knees, [ clasp them one of mly arms behind your

savages mly so mad one.

knees the other behind your calves mly mouth coming

and going from the birth of your thighs to your round

knee-carls mly lips applied mly tongue moistening you

with sali�a to make the rosiness of your knees shine. [ sit

back onlm/y haunches to assess the shininess. You bend

forwards your hands resting on mly hair, you draw mle

to you, you attempt to raise ml e up. Clinging to your

legs [ resist mly pressure on your hams making you give

at the knees. You do not fall. Now you are holding yourseH very stiff. [ descend the length of your legs touched You have placed your either arm around their necks. You

by mly hair. M/y head rests on your feet mly hair

progress seated carried by the women on their crossed

spreads over their bare toes, mly arms stretch on either

arms. Your knees and your armpits are painted. Leather

side of your legs right behind you, sharply they embrace

thongs girdle your torso your waist your arms leaving

your ankles approximating them while you brace yourseH

your forearms breasts belly bare. You hold yourseH erect.

increasingly. Flowers tom from the acacia by the wind

You look straight in front of you. You sing mouth closed

fall on us their perfume stimulated by the tree's motion

voice tenuous and modulated. Some of the women leapinvading m/e. [ am seized with shuddering before you ing around you take up the tonality in voices of different

so silent. The sound of the sea is heard. The women run

pitch and fall back erect heels together digging a hole in

and chase each other on the beach. Now they can barely

the sand of the avenue. Your bearers begin to spin slowly

be seen. You are alone as [ am with you face to face.

at first then faster and faster, their upswept hair is

horizontal. You, you extend your arms behind their necks

your voice rises, your mouth exposes your teeth. When

66

On the hillside the women do round dances in the evening. Often and often 1 look at them without daring to approach. 1 know them all by their names from having

studied them in the library books. 1 list their attributes, 1

consider their bearing, 1 am not sorry that their severity

1 have access to your glottis and your larynx red with

should have remain attached to the books since they are

blood voice stifled. 1 reach your trachea, 1 embed m/yself

here before mle so totally devoid of it. Mly heart beats

as far as your left lung, there mly so delicate one 1 place

at times when 1 see you among them mly best beloved

mly two hands on the pale pink bland mass touched it

mly unnameable one you whom 1 desire from the bottom

unfolds somewhat, it moves fanwise, mly knees flex, 1

of mly stdmach shall never die. 1 watch you holding the

gather into mly mouth your entire reserves of air. Mixed

hand of Artemis laced in leather over her bare breasts

with it are traces of smoke, odours of herbs, the scent of

then that of Aphrodite, the black goddess with the flat

a flower, irises it seems to ml e, the lung begins to beat, it

belly. There is also the triple Persephone, there is sungives a jump while the tears flow from your wide-open headed Ishtar, there is Albina eldest of the Danaids, there

eyes, you trap mly mouth like a cupping-glass on the

is Epone the great horsewoman, there is Leucippa whose

sticky mass of your lung, large soft sticky fragments

mare runs in the meadow below white and shining, there

insinuate themselves between mly lips, shape themselves

is dark Isis, there is red Hecate, there are Pomona and

to mly palate, the entire mass is engulfed in mly open

Flora holding each other by the hand, there is Andromouth, mly tongue is caught in an indescribable glue, a meda of the fleet foot, there is blonde Cybele, there is 10

jelly descends towards mly glottis, mly tongue recoils, 1

with the white cow, there are Niobe and Latone interchoke and you choke without a cry, at this moment mly twined, there is Sappho of the violet breasts, there is

most pleasing of all women it is impossible to conceive a

Gurinno the swift runner, there is Ceres with the com in

more magistral a more inevitable coupling.

her hair, there is white Leucothea, there is moon-headed

Rhamnusis, you all dance, you all beat the ground with

the soles of your feet with increasing force. None seems

fatigued, while Minerva the daughter of Zeyna blows

her flute and Attis beloved of Sappho beats the tom-tom.

If amongst all of them you are the only one to perspire

it bedecks you mly unique one, their complaisant fingers

touch you, then you shine with many fires, rays leave

68

69

your body descending to the ground, hammered for the

nth time. I am troubled to see you at your ease among

the women eyes shining loina twisted by spasms your

pelvis thrust forward in the rhythm of the dance. Amicably you share the sacred mushroom, each one bites the edge of the cap, no one asks to become bigger or smaller.

I take you by surprise, I tackle you, I take possession of

At a sign from blessed Aphrodite all around you exchange

you, I bear you off into the cavern all afire with the

their colours. Leucothea becomes the black one, Demeter

mauve violet pink lights of the lanterns. You resist, you

the white, Isis the fair one, 10 the red, Artemis the green,

struggle;, you cry out in a strident voice. The door of the

Sappho the golden, Persephone the violet, the transcavern glides noiselessly. You are laid down on the beaten formations spread from one to the other, the rainbow of

earth at the threshold. Some women appear from the

the prism passes across their faces while you unchanging

oblique corridors and holding you firmly remove your

in the chestnut colour of your hair you start to cry out

clothes. One of them having playfully placed her two

while I regard you in your great ecstasy though deprived

hands on your mouth because of your cries is inunediately

of the sacred mushroom awaiting you in the laurels with

bitten. You throw your head back, you shake it from

their hidden flower and you come near m/e at one

side to side, you cease struggling only when they begin

moment or another.

to massage you, then the anger leaves your eyes. Standing

motionless I watch you. You pose no question. Four of

the women bring the great silver tub full of steaming

water. They plunge you in it, they wash you, they remove

the traces of dust and dirt on your skin. They envelop

you in large bath wraps, they perfume you, they anoint

you, they comb you, they give you a clean garment. Now

I take you by the hand and draw you down on to the

thick carpets. You sit on your heels, you rest your hands

fingers spread on your thighs, you regard m/ e in silence

you do not recognize m/e. A full censer swings.

[ have long been prepared for this phenomenon by

various palpitations traversing m/y body at every instant.

An urgent wave descends emitted by m/y brain under

the touch of your fingers on m/y shoulders. M/y back

opens between the shoulderblades to release the fan

The soil of the garden slides between your teeth, your

shaped membranes compressed by the ribs. Violet and

saliva moistens it, you feed m/ e with it your tongue in

translucent they at once unfold and begin to quiver. You

m/y mouth your hands on m/y cheeks holding m/e still,

excite a new wave, your fingers arrest it at the level of

[ am transformed into mud m/y legs m/y sex m/y thighs

m/y carotid. Now there is the gentle sound of a circular

m/y belly standing between your legs glutted with the

wing in process of beating, it surrounds m/y opened neck

smell of the vaginal secretion rising from your middle, [

round to the nape where it is attached. It extends over

liquefy within and without. The mud reaches the muscles

m/y breasts its black veins visible in the deep mauve of

of m/y thighs, it touches m/y sex, it coats m/e cold and

the stretched skin. The unfolded beating wings brush

slippery, m/y labia retracting it spreads to m/y abdomen

against you not preventing you from drawing near, one

m/y kidneys m/y shoulderblades the nape of m/y neck

of them passes over your cheeks, another makes you close

which is circumvented in its turn, m/y neck bows, you

your eyes. M/y brain assailed produces increasingly rapid

still holding m/y cheeks in your hands filling m/e with

waves. The wings are born incessantly with ever-increassaliva and earth your tongue against m/y gums. M/y ing speed. M/y arms are attached to m/y sides by two

muscles separate from each other in sodden masses. M/y

gigantic wings of a black colour, once folded they are no

entire body is overwhelmed. First to fall is m/y anus.

thicker than a knife-blade, their substance is identical

Some glutei soon follow. M/y biceps abandon m/y arms.

with that silk flags are made of. Their shape is comparable

The

to that of the wings of bats. Each of m/y ribs is the shank

arms themselves fall entire to the ground. Only m/y

cheeks remain intact. A very strong smell of moist earth

of a newly-created wing. Arranged in parallel the closed

spreads around. [ see plants rooted in the fibres of m/y

wings seen in profile resemble the antennae of a lamellimuscles. [ lose heart, [ submit m/yself to your will m/y corn. Outspread they begin to rustle exposing the dull

deplorable one [ have no share in this systematic transgleam of their indigo pink mauve violet colour. You stand formation you impose on m/e.

opposite lashed by their rapid flapping your arms protecting your face eyes open. The multiplication proceeds the wings now extend as far as m/y hips, at m/y feet two

membranes arise and open at once diaphanous violet

73

palpitant transmitting waves. A quiet hissing issues from

M/y hand presses in insistent fashion at the top of your

your throat while I stay motionless body petrified before

left cheek at the place where the skin is marked by the

you wings all outspread traversed throughout by vertiginviolet scar, 1 succeed thus in making your eyeball topple ous movements which at this moment make you cry out,

out, 1 watch it hanging, 1 am gripped simultaneously by

while sombreIy mly so desired one 1 enfold you.

emotion in the throat and by the pleasure of seeing

behind your eye. At once 1 test the elasticity of the optic

nerve by pulling on your eyeball with mly fingers but

without letting go. The muscular hinges that allow your

eyeball to move fascinate mle so much that 1 insert m/y

tongue at the points where they are attached to the

internal nerve and external nerve by a single knot. In

these morements I touch the part of your eyeball which

is normally hidden, 1 spread m/y saliva over it, 1 lick it

1 take it between m/y lips, 1 squeeze it, 1 make it roll

entire within mly mouth, 1 suck it, 1 suckle at it, 1

Be seated firmly on your heels mly dearest one, let your

swallow it, I find m/yseH connected with your optic nerve

thighs be of bronze, your knees of red mud of clay, your

by suction, 1 apply m/yseH to the orbital aperture like

adorable hands opposed to your vasti externi whether

a cupping-glass, 1 am absorbed, 1 introduce m/yself into

they be gold amethyst liquid mercury, let your breast be

the motor centres behind your eye, 1 insert m/yseH m/y

green and shining of the same consistence as the undermouth m/y tongue mly fingers, 1 pass behind your side of the leaves of trees, let your bust be of tempered

mirror, I spread out, 1 embed m/yseH, finally 1 reach the

steel, your shoulders of copper, let your loins be iron,

left hemisphere of your brain, you repel m I e with all

your neck silver, your nape tin, let your cheeks be

your will-power, now 1 cling on with both hands, under

platinum, let your eyes mly favoured one be of lead of

m/y frantic pressure your head becomes detached at the

molten lead and milk, let your vulva be of fiery infusible

level of the cervical vertebrae, it is immediately swept

violent iridium, let your vulva - labia heart clitoris iris

away by a violent gust of wind, 1 do not let go of you,

crocus - be of odorous refractory osmium, be strong mly

you carry m/e with you suspended from your jugular

most beautiful one the most febrile the most flagrant mly

veins in space grasped by your upswept hair mly adorhands breaking on touching you mly voice seeking to able one your mouth wide-open.

re-echo your voice.

7+

75

The city where you live is surrounded by a labyrinth

where the unaccredited are lost who do not announce

themselves by blowing the siren-voiced crescent-maped

THE ARTERIAL BLOOD THE AORTIC

trumpet fastened aCl'OllS the breasts by a leather thong

BLOOD THE VENULES THE

as you all do. For a long time now 1 have been walking

ARTERIOLES THE CAPILLARY VESseeking to find the way in each of the slanting paths overcome by the scent of the flowers determined not to raise SELS THE AORTA THE CAROTID

m/y trumpet to m/y mouth to rejoin you in the utmost

THE CEPHALIC THE JUGULAR THE

secrecy. Grey-headed finches with blue bellies are ranked

CORONARY THE OESOPHAGEAL

one aga.in$t the other on the spreading branches of the

THE PULMONARY THE FACIAL THE

limes at hand's height. 1 have so often traversed this

garden eyes bandaged you holding m/e by the shoulders

TEMPORAL THE SUBCLAVIAN THE

to guide m/e refusing whenever 1 asked you to give m/e

MAMMARY THE BRACHIAL THE

a clue to m/y whereabouts. 1 recall your bites on the

MESENTERIC THE RENAL THE LUMnape of m/y neck, the distress that aftJicts m/e each time

BAR THE ILIAC THE SACRAL THE

you halt leaving ml e alone in the dark, 1 recall your

laughter m/y confusion when the bandage removed 1

RADIAL THE SAPHENOUS THE

have lost sight of you, 1 recall the torment that seizes

TIBIALS THE VENA CAVA THE

m/e waiting for you seeking you along the sandy paths,

PORTAL VEIN THE PULMONARY

1 recall the cries you wrench from m I e surprising m / e

THE COAGULATION THE CLOTTING

from behind the persistence with which you continue to

THE CONCRETIONS THE CLOTS

put the bandage round m/e forbidding m/e to discover

how to arrive alone. Now 1 have lost heart, 1 stay seated

THE SOLIDIFICATIONS

in a grove of pink lilac. At a given moment some little

girls in the treetops amuse themselves by throwing oranges

at m/e. They answer m/y pleas with mockery. 1 start

off again, 1 see island dwellings clearly visible in apparently quite accessible places, 1 see them withdraw whenever 1 approach them. 1 lose patience at m/y inability to draw near them on this horizontal surface where every

77

point seems given at the first glance. A moment comes

while I am no longer able to remain still, I begin to

towards evening when m/y legs can no longer carry m/ e,

struggle, while I perceive the movements with heightened

then I lie down bringing the coiled trumpet to m/y

intensity. The bandage is suddenly removed by your

mouth to announce m/y surrender and fall asleep.

hands. I discover that I am absolutely covered over m/y

entire naked body with great black spiders from the feet

to the hair m/y skin all eaten away creviced full of bites

of purpijsh swellings vile. Your fingers rest on m/y mouth

brushing away several of the creatures to prevent m/ e

from crying out. You look at m/e, you smile at m/e

infinitel�, m/y eyes are apposed to your eyes, I am seized

by unnapteable joy and horror, thus I abase m/yself m/y

head supported by your hands.

The bandage keeps m/y eyes closed. I am in darkness.

A glitter sometimes an orange dazzle enters between m/y

eyelids and m/y eyes firmly pressed on by the ligature.

From time to time you m/y best-beloved you increase the

pressure by applying your two palms to m/y eyeballs and

roIling them under your fingers. A great shudder seizes

m/e in the flawless night in which I am plunged, m/y

thighs m/y legs m/y ankles are pervaded by a tingling,

m/y sex especially is smarting, tiny movements take place

on m/y belly, there is a pullulation on m/y breasts, the

movements invade m/y skin by thousands, an increasingly intolerable formication spreads over m/ e, it affects m/e up to the armpits, m/y arms are involved on both

The women lead m / e to your scattered fragments, there

their aspects, it gains m/y neck m/y shoulders, m/y

is an arm, there is a foot, the neck and head are together,

mouth m/y flanks are assailed. I have gooseflesh over

your eyelids are closed, your detached ears are somem/y entire surface. Suddenly I am perforated by bites in where, your eyeballs have rolled in the mud, I see them

numerous places where m/y skin has been touched. Then

side by side, your fingers have been cut off and thrown

you, you begin to sing in a very soft voice m/y ravisher

to one side, I perceive your pelvis, your bust is elsewhere,

71l

79

several fragments of forearms the thighs and tibiae are

missing. M/y vision blurs at this sight, the women support mle under the shoulders, mly knees give way, mly cries are stiflled in mly breast, they ask mle where you

should be interred in what order to collect your fragments

which makes mle recoil shrieking, I pronounce a ban on

Your palms are against mly palms a faintness overcomes

the recording of your death so that the traitress responsmle, weakness affects the hollows of mly knees, you are ible for your being tom to pieces may not be alerted. I

face to face with m le the soft inward of your arms

announce that you are here alive though cut to pieces, I

pressed against m I y arms, then a formication spreads in

search hastily for your fragments in the mud, mly nails

mly epiciermis, I see mly pores dilate, I see your pores

scrabble at the small stones and pebbles, I find your nose

do likewise, open they secrete fine hairs in thousands the

a part of your vulva your labia your clitoris, I find your

colour and consistence of those of the crania, they grow

ears one tibia then the other, I assemble you part by

at full speed, I feel them fall from your arms on to mly

part, I reconstruct you, I put your eyes back in place, I

arms, I cannot distinguish yours from mline they are so

appose the separated skin edge to edge, I hurriedly promingled as they multiply, the two faces remain naked, duce tears vaginal juice saliva in the requisite amount, I

but they develop below the chin on the shoulders on the

smear you with them at all your lacerations, I put mly

breasts the back, the arms the forearms are covered with

breath in your mouth, I warm your ears your hands your

them, they emerge from the breasts, they emerge from

breasts, I introduce all mly air into your lungs, I stand

the loins, they emerge from the bellies thighs legs, they

erect to sing, far off I perceive the island shore and the

reach our feet, only the vulvas and the pubic fleeces are

sun shining on the sea, I tum away the goddesses of death

unaltered, they are so numerous that they create the

squatting on their heels around you, I begin a violent

effect of a pelt with very long hairs of tenuous consistence,

dance around your body, mly heels dig into the ground,

I clasp you mly hands buried in your hairs, I begin to

I arrange your hair on the clumps of grass, I Isis the allweep because I can no longer touch your bare skin. You powerful I decree that you live as in the past Osiris mly

on the contrary you laugh, you bend mle in your arms,

most cherished mly most enfeebled I say that as in the

you show mle how to catch the wind, you seek a current,

past we shall succeed together in making the little girls

all the hairs stretch out on either side, they raise us up,

who will come after us, then you mly Osiris mly most

they enable us to fly away, I wipe mly tears against you

beautiful you smile at mle undone exhausted.

mly furred one, I float mly arms on your arms, the

wind mingles our hairs, it combs them, it brushes them,

80

81

it gives them lustre, farewell dark continent you steer for

the isle of the living.

At the first crescent of the rising moon the women make

holiday. The moonlight barely creates a reflection in the

dark eddies of the sea. The blue of the sky where several

The tears flow fast on your cheeks, mly hands repair

stars are visible is paler shining and trembling round

there and are moistened there, the tears fall larger and

them. 1 name them in a loud voice. A lapping disturbs

larger tepid salt against mly mouth, they cover your neck

the silence then ceasing re-establishes it. A warm gust

your shoulders your breasts, 1 scatter them, 1 disperse

enters mly lungs. The boats are ranged side by side. 1

them over your entire body, the tears continue to flow,

recognize your boat next to mline swaying poised your

your breast heaves with sobs, you begin to hiccup, the

flank bumping mly flank, our two masses darker than

saliva falls in great strings from your mouth, 1 hold its

the others because of their black colour the violet insignia

elastic substance between mly fingers, 1 carry it on mly

invisible at this hour. Coming from the interior of the

mouth on mly forehead on mly eyes on mly cheeks, 1

island the women approach the seashore in groups bearstop breathing, 1 roll you in your own tears, now they ing lanterns and hollowed pumpkins with a flame barely

make quite a pool around you, incessantly 1 utter words

stirred by the wind lighting their orange interiors. Some

to make you redouble your tears, you weep without stopof them beat the drums. The majority are covered with ping, you weep for yourself, you weep for mle with

garlands of flowers on their breasts round their arms, only

marvellous force, your entire body is involved, your

the colour of the white flowers adopted by those who are

shoulders heave, now you start you sob you cry out, your

black-skinned is visible, the red orange violet pink parma

tears fall all at once when you straighten your neck, you

are black, they make moving stains on the white-skinned

implore ml e with strident voice but 1 remain utterly

bodies. Some women blow very strident airs on flutes.

ferocious towards you, then you begin to weep harder

Some wear on their heads silver jewels in the form of a

still, you make yourself drunk and you intoxicate ml e

crescent. Others beat in their hands dancing as they move

while your water mly intemperate mistress, mly most

forward. There are those who are silent two by two well

tormented one, descends in runnels across the beach of

away from the middle of the procession holding each

the island to the sea.

other by the hand. Great circles form on the beach, white

83

candles arc grouped very closely together in complex

arrangements which cover extensive areas. At a given

moment the entire beach is invested. Not one empty dark

spot remains, thousands of candles bum buried in the

sand. The women move from one shape to another altering some details in their arrangement. You are not in any group. I have long since abandoned the extreme edge of

Black is the brook suddenly dividing your body in two

the sea, there where the waves dampen the sand and

thighs disjointed at their middle knees taut breasted torso

make it shine. I seek you. You do not appear. Not one

in its two ,parts, the left alone retaining the aorta venflashing moving flame illuminates your sharp features tricles aurides the heart in its entirety. Violet is the water

your pale cheeks your ambiguous smile. I am erect once

of the jet surging behind the cranium round the lobes of

more, I regard the sea. It is then I notice you, I do not

your brain. Gold is the river issuing from your eyes, its

doubt that it is you, right out at sea lying on the water

divers effluents irrigating your shoulders and arms. I see

in the reflection of the moon arms stretched out on either

the movement of the little crests, a saliva comes to your

side of your pale body. I walk in the sea the water comlips half-open mouth, a foam passes between your teeth, ing half-way up m/y body then covering m/y shoulders.

a hoarseness reaches your high throat. I inform you that

I swim strongly over to where you are, I stretch out bethe wooden boats the windmills the bridges manufactured side you, I hear you singing incessantly m/y exultant one

by the little girls stud your suddenly closed eyes. A song

you do not look at m/e, no more do I at you. As the

is born in m/y breast to accompany the slow glidings of

night wears on the women over there draw near and cast

m/y boat across you, I sing the eddies which make it

their garlands on the sea.

deviate the sharp shards of light through the trees the

milky sun falling on your pale breasts the ambiguous

silent laughter on your parted lips the black violet golden

precipitations of the current against your vulva the tranquil mednsae outspread on your palms, asleep. Black is the jet necklace across your breast passing beneath your

breasts surrounding them the polished spheres of pearls

now loose rolling within your mouth your bared teeth all

black exposing their rapid transmutation black black

stream congealed shining.

85

You tum m/e inside out, 1 am a glove in your hands,

1 find support for m/y arms on the gust of air under the

gently firmly inexorably holding m/y throat in your

trees where it blows most strongly. M I y forearms are

palm, 1 struggle, 1 am frantic, 1 enjoy fear, you count

raised, they return very quickly against mly body, th�

the veins and the arteries, you retract them to one side,

they are raised anew, they fall back, and

you reach the vital organs, you

so on 10

breathe into m I y lungs

sequence with the fingers of mly hands outspread. At

through m/y mouth, 1 stifle, you hold the long tubes of

a

given moment, all together, 1 take off from the ground,

the viscera, you unfold them, you uncoil them, you slide

1 feel the grass brush against m/y calves, at last 1 make

them round your neck, slopping you let them go, you cry

out, you say delightful stink, you rave, you seek the green

it, 1 fly off, 1 follow the rising current which bears mle

fluid of

up

the

without

bile, you

mly

plunge

having

your

to

fingers

make any

into

exertion

the stomach,

other than

you cry out, you take the heart in your mouth, you lick

to flap m/y forearms at full speed. This becomes easier

as

it for

1 establish the proper inclination of mly trunk and

a long time, your tongue playing with the coronary

arteries, you take it in your hands, 1 cannot speak, your

pelvis. M/y legs are together. 1 look at �he clouds a� the

teeth biting m/y cheeks your lips unscathed at the edge

place where the sun fringes them. It IS there 1 direct

of m/y lips you, your sovereign hair over m/y face, bent

m/yself. 1 am hardly out of breath. As soon as 1 have

over you look, you, your eyes not quitting m/y eyes,

gained height 1 let m I yself go arms and �egs extended

covered with liquids acids chewed digested nourishment,

lying on the air, 1 see the fields, 1 see the nver, 1 s�e the

you full of juices corroded in an odour of dung and urine

clouds below ml e. 1 enter into a cold cumulus which at

crawl up to m/y carotid in order to sever it. Glory.

once soaks m/e. Then 1 flap mly arms, 1 begin to fly

lengthily endlessly on the sunny aspect lips compressed,

1 do not call your name m/y most forbidden one, the

syllables would be lost in the whistling howlin� c�g

ululation of the wind. 1 content m/yself With flY10g

always further away from you.

86

M/y fingers grow at a crazy speed each of them reaching

a length fifteen times greater than its original length. I

abandon m I yself to a gentle exploration of your body at

first uncertain insidious then increasingly insistent. You

THE CONGEALINGS THE CALCULI

cry out, you utter all the words indicative of surprise

THE STONES THE NODULES THE IN·

pain joy circulating from mly ear-flaps to the deepest

DURATIONS THE LAYERS THE

convolutions of mly brain traversing them in all directions. The surest of mly fingers the index insinuates itself SCALES THE FIBRES THE FIBRILS

along your rectum, uncompressed as far as the colon it

THE LIGAMENTS THE TENDONS

forces a passage through the faeces, it reaches the bend

THE EXTENSORS THE SUSPENSOR·

of the intestine, it enlarges, it turns twice on itself, it

IES THE FLEXORS THE ADDUCT·

descends the length of the ascending colon, it bends

again, it gains the ileum of the small intestine making

ORS THE ABDUCTORS THE

almost a complete circle girdling the small intestine like

SYNERGISTS THE ANTAGONISTS

a lasso. Simultaneously the middle finger is inserted into

THE TENSORS THE ROTATORS THE

the neck of your uterus, it traverses the womb, it perfor

ACCESSORIES THE RECTI THE

ates the bowel-wall introducing itself into the small in

OBLIQUES THE ORBICULARS THE

testine. Deranged thus through and through you have

stopped protesting, you are completely immobilized trans

TRANSVERSE THE SPHINCTERS

fixed, you faint repeatedly. Then I address you, I demand

THE VISCERAL MUSCLES THE

that you ask mle to continue, you do so, however your

SMOOTH MUSCLES THE CARDIAC

stomach revolts, the vomitings that reach your belly are

MUSCLE THE SKELETAL MUSCLES

absorbed by mle accordingly as I wipe your skin with

mly tongue with mly lips. M/y ring and little fingers

THE TRAPEZII THE PECTORALS

remaining outside you having grown together with the

other fingers are engaged in caressing your loins your

shoulders your nape while I pursue mly slow inexorable

invasion of you. M/y two fingers within you have come

together, they attempt the passage from the duodenum

from the stomach to your oesophagus, I try to reach your

88

89

throat, then your mouth, from within, I seek to be

comes and goes from m/y chest to m/y temples, I seek

absorbed by you during m/y writhings in your interior

you in the bleeding glory of the sun, I come m/y adored

to be spat out rejected vomited entirely, I implore you

one I follow you I come to you I draw near you, I have

in a very low voice, vomit m/e with all your might

forced the passage, then m/y blood mingles with yours

muzzled suclding-iamb queen cat spit m/ e out, vomit

inundating you entirely, the inwards of our arms finding

m/e up.

and pressing each other, ultimately desire finds us, we

move towards each other in great travail.

It is not the gentle sound of the rain that I hear just now,

but your blood falling on the metal, it spurts from the

seven openings, the temporal arteries are severed, the

carotid is cut through, the iliac arteries the radials are

holed, I am spattered from top to toe. Your blood deserts

its circuits. I am inundated, glory, a great mist descends

Your scales are so apposed that your skin resembles hard

from you on m/e, the heavy beating of your heart the

and shining metal. I enjoy stroking your spherical surhurrying of your aorta cradle m/ e, they make m/ e fall face, I turn you around, you are so big m/y most adored

into a lethargy, a pallor overcomes you, you smile inone that I cannot form an overall perception of you. I effable untouchable as yet untouched. I am gripped with

move to the level of your eyes each of them having the

fear of losing you of failing to reach you. Bending over

breadth of thirty of m/y own. I pass m/y hand between

the metal mirror I feverishly seek the openings to make

the superimposed corollas which surround them. I canat the temples the carotid the groins the wrists, you can not look at you face to face. I see each of your eyes in

do no more for m / e, you raise your eyelids in order to

tum. One of the two yellow watches m/e, I begin to

look at m/e, I beg you to wait for m/e, I summon you,

stagger. Your delicate gigantic mouth opens and shuts

I call in your ears, I follow you in your journey, the blood

incessantly, I press m/y naked belly against it and against

spurts from m/y badly sectioned arteries, I become imit and against the single lip that bounds it, your soft cold patient, I cut m/yseif to pieces in m/y haste, a buzzing

touch makes m/e shiver. I move under your white belly,

90

91

I press mly hands and mly bare feet against its slippery

You are the tallest, Ishtar goddess of goddesses you are

surface, I swim the whole length of your body, I rethe powerful one, blessed be your name over centuries of ascend, I touch one of the small fins at the level of one

centuries. You are the possessor of all power, you are

of your eyes, I try to unfold it, it resists, it palpitates

strong impassive while you abide in the green in the

under mly pressure. I let m/yseif sway on your flank

violet of the heavens while they all await you, head erect

from one great flipper to the other, I try to stay balanced

you shine in the black nights, you are blinding in the

while you move forward at full speed. Then I fall in

days of summer, desire for you overwhelms mle once

front of you at mouth level. You in the incessant movefor all together with terror as befits all your adorers, the ment of your single gaping curled lip mly mole you

earth th¢ trees the waters the rivers the torrents the seas

swallow mle, at once I enter into your immense red

the staI'!l of the sky do they not tremble at the mere

illuminated oesophagus, I fall against its wall, I find

utterance the mere vibration of your formidable name,

m/yself propelled from one point to another to the level

Oh that I might be dumb or mly tongue fall out when I

of the arterial arch, I am utterly shattered by its throbseek your black shining visage your gilded limbs your bing, I am driven to the level of the auricles and the

vigorous knees, foolish I am if I complain aloud of the

ventricles of your heart only the membranes of the two

glorious supremely divine Astarte she who has no beginwalls separating mle from them.

ning who has no end she who is, she who cannot have

been that which she will not be. Ishtar Astarte mly beloved eternal one I invoke you I implore you, I thirst for your benevolent tears as much as your rage and your

ferocity, not one has prayed to you without your hearing

her voice you who have created all woman to be loved by

you, mly adorable one appear once more tonight that I

may lay m/yseif down beside you that mly hands may

touch you that mly perfumes may please you, I shall

speak or else not say a word as you wish, I shall sing or

else stay waiting for your voice to issue from your mouth

mly solestial one mly celestial one mly sovereign mistress, blessed be thy name.

9�

93

Your hair stiffened by the frost sparkles. Your hands are

stilled against your upturned throat. The green and blue

dawn makes a light travel over your naked unfolded

body. Your eyes are not closed, they do not see. The

women bearing torches kneel beside you, your face is lit

by the gleams. Shadows pass over your teeth, in your

I have discovered on your arms on your shoulders at the

mouth I see your palate. One of the women begins slowly

top of your back on your loins on your chest violet marks

to massage your breast back loins belly with her strong

ranged .on the skin of your body. You, you do not conceal

hands. Another wraps you in sheepskins. Someone heats

them, you do not place your hands palms open over the

water on a fire in the snow. The boiling water put into

affected places indicating that one of the women has laid

the bottles warms your petrified body at the places they

claim to you. You stand opposite mle every muscle tense

touch. I am paralysed, I am afraid. I begin to embrace

a smile. irradiating from your mouth over your entire

you as warmly as is in mly power. I pass mly breath

face as you look at mle. M/y fingers touch the ridges

into your mouth hoping to reach your lungs. Now I am

one after the other, a swelling magnifying the points of

naked, I lie down on top of you, I roll on your body to

contact as I perceive them. I feci a pain spreading from

give you the warmth of mly blood of mly muscles. Here

mly fingertips to mly wrists extending the length of mly

and there you soften. It is the muscles of one of your

arms as far as mly throat making mly chest burst. It is

arms. It is the hollow of one of your shoulders, it is your

at that moment that I spit a part of mly right lung a

throat, it is your wrists and your palms. You are seized

soft bland mass to the back of mly throat and palate.

by a trembling that I barely perceive. I cry out with all

I take it between mly fingers, I pull, I wrench it out,

mly might. The torches sway in the hands of the bearers

I hold it pale pink still living before your eyes, I shake

bent over you. Now a rattle issues from your mouth, I

it, I squeeze it, I crush it on your skin against the pearlreceive it on mly lips, I wait for you to pronounce mly shaped weals ranged one beside the other. M/y left lung

name. In mly impatience I begin to dig in the snow with

comes in its tum into mly mouth, in fragments, its bulk

bare hands, I look for snowdrops and black hellebore to

chokes ml e in passage its elastic substance touching mly

place on you. You strive to raise your head, you move

teeth, I bite it, I chew it, I swallow it, I spit it out, I

your hands, you look around you, you ask to drink. The

spread it from the edge of mly lips over the entire surface

sea around the island is frozen.

of mly body. You are seized with convuIsions, I persist.

I spread the pink paste over the inward of your arms.

There is no smile on your face but the puckering that

94

95

precedes tears. [ forbid you to weep. Untiringly [ anoint

the garden up above mly hands over mly ears m/y hair

you with m/y living cement, [ cradle you in m/y anns,

tossed [ begin to pray to Sappho mly all-powerful one

[ � you, [ press m/y lips to your lips m/y tongue

save her from dying. One after the other the tide-race

forcmg you to open your mouth, [ insert into you the

carries away the huts on the seashore where the nets dry.

last pulverized vestiges of mly lungs which you swallow

If you must die m/y most adored one let the entire island

shrinking which you prepare to digest or to vomit whose

be delivered to destruction, let not one of us remain alive.

intromission you are unable to refuse their evacuation

As for ml e [ look out to sea again, [ do not weep. [ see

from m/y body being effected with the greatest violence

the boats empty of their occupants flung up one after the

by the rending open of mly chest m/y eyes fixed unother over the ruined dwelling-places. Then the first tiringly on the long violet marks which reappear beneath

rescues are organized. With ropes with cranes with boatthe bruises their sight tearing the most desperate cries hooks it! is possible to evacuate the women coastguards

from m/e mly cruellest one that have ever issued from

among whom few losses are to be deplored. Already the

m/e.

bodies of the drowned are laid out on the terraces of the

upper town. Briskly the women mass in their hundreds,

songs whose beat is marked by the tom-toms aid the

quickest conduct of the operations. I do not find you. I

do not recognize among the wrecks your black boat

marked with the violet sign you affect. I move towards

the coral grotto where we often fall asleep from fatigue.

There away from the storm in an absolute calm with

none of the furious sounds of the wind with none of the

The temperature of the island cools. A sudden tornado

shouts or songs of mourning or songs of work you are

sweeps the coast loosening the moorings of the boats in

asleep in the bottom of the boat mly triumphant one

the ports. At sea-level the wind blows at a speed so great

smiling, the orange reflections of the coral are sped over

as to be unrecordable. There are a great many fisheryour naked body by the movement of the waves. So women at sea. You are among them. The first wave to

Sappho the all-powerful has allowed you to reach the

overflow the beaches covers the houses and their occugrotto which has saved more than one woman in days of pants at a bound. Torn-out wooden stakes rise suddenly

tempest. I swim up to you in all haste. I let m/yself faU

into the air. [ see some swimmers energetically attempting

at your side. I begin to sing in a very low voice glory to

to withstand the eddies. [ see nothing more. Kneeling in

Sappho over centuries of centuries so be it.

96

97

The three mares arrive abreast in broad daylight. On

their flanks their coat is struck by sunlight. I look at the

mauve or pale-green pools among the stretches of damp

sand. You amidst them you advance sombrely, you shake

your mane, you begin to neigh, you draw near, your

Your hand followed by your ann have entered into mly

thro�,

yellow eyes fixed on m/e. Now the pace of the three

y?u travene mly larynx, you arrive at mly lungs,

unsaddled mares slows, their coats moistened by the sea

you ItemIZe mly organs, you make mle die ten thousand

glisten, the skin quivers over their muscles, there are no

deaths while I smile, you rip out mly stomach, you tear

flies to stroke them only the wind and the insistent heat

mly intestines, you project the uttermost fury into mly

of the sun. Their legs bend with enormous slowness, I can

body, I cry out but not from pain, I am overtaken seized

see for a long time the curve at their knees, then they

hold of, I go over to you entirely, I explode the small

touch the ground again while another leg is lifted in its

units of mly ego, I am threatened, I am desired by you.

turn. Flank to flank you all advance, you yourself, mouth

A tree shoots in mly body, it moves its branches with

open not held by any bit teeth bared, you pant, your

extreme violence with extreme gentleness, or else it is a

nostrils quiver. Coming up to mle you kneel before the

bush of burning thorns it tears the other side of mly

little girls like the mounts in painted pictures, your head

exposed muscles mly inside mly interiors, I am inbends and tosses, I place botiI mly hands on your mane, habited, I am not dreaming, I am penetrated by you,

I hold your head, I pass mly tongue over your muzzle,

now I must struggle against bursting to retain mly overall

I glide against your belly in order to mount you. Then

perception, I reassemble you in all mly organs, I burst,

you bridle, your coat grazes mly vulva and mly thighs,

I reassemble you, sometimes your hand sometimes your

when I lie down m/y belly is pressed against your back.

mouth sometimes your shoulder sometimes your whole

You set off at a gallop towards the sea, you whinny with

body, when m/y stomach is affected your stomach reall your might, the wind blows at mly ears, it upholds sponds when m/y lungs rattle your lungs rattle, finally I

m/y hair behind, mly breasts judder, when I tum round

am without depth without place mly stomach appear

I see the island dwellings all small and distant, then I

ing between mly breasts m/y lungs traversing the skin

begin to whinny in mly tum as loudly as I can, I slide

of m/y back.

along your lengtiI, I let m/yself fall to the ground, now I

gallop even though it means forcing the pace to keep up

with you, mly feet happily trample the sand, the sun on

the sea scorches mly eyes, we enter the sea head-on,

98

99

whoever retraces their steps it will not be you nor I mly

dearest, your body steams, your n06trils flare, mly flank

touches your flank, coolness comes from the water, a

dazzle comes to mle from the sun and the sea, sound

THE DORSALS THE ILIACS THE

reaches ml e from the waves, a warm breath touches mly

TERES THE QUADRATI THE TRIneck yours.

ANGULAR THE PYRAMIDALS THE

ABDOMINALS THE GLUTEALS THE

BICEPS THE TRICEPS THE TENDONS

OF ACHILLEA THE SUPINATORS

,

THE 11IBIALS THE SUBLIMI THE

ABDUCTORS OF THE EYE THE

Your hair is undone over your face. The hairs are taken

RECTI SUPERIORES THE COMone at a time and fixed to a hoop in a half-circle all

PLEXES THE DIAPHRAGM THE

around your head thus held away from your face by

their whole length. So stretched they resound beneath

VAGINA THE ANUS THE SOFT

m I y fingertips which slide along them. The infinitely

PALATE THE CONNECTIVE TISSUE

soft fragile sound can be varied over the whole extent of

THE MENINGES THE DURA MATER

the instrument. Your face is totally obscured by this

THE ARACHNOID THE PIA MATER

obscure stiff veil. I regard you from below, your cheeks

are very pale. Whenever mly fingers make your hairs

THE SCLERA THE CORNEA THE

vibrate you begin to sigh. Now I follow them with some

RETINA THE CHOROID THE GUMS

dexterity and faster and faster. The sound-waves create

THE PLEURA THE PERITONEUM

a pressure around us, a change occurs in the atm06phere,

THE OMENTUM

a slow movement commences, an eddy develops, a current becomes apparent. You drift off suddenly, you sway from side to side; you are uplifted. Your hands cling to

mly hair, now you rise up, you drag mle carried by

mly hair. You start to spin on yourself, I copy your

100

101

movement, I effect the same slow rotation mly hands

the sun on the leaves of the trees, I recall a river, I recall

seeking points of support. It is not then possible to arrest

the wild races in the hot hay-covered meadows mly most

the movement it is so slow. An irresistible force emanates

atrocious one in the immobility you inIpose on ml c. At

from you and sweeps mle away. I close mly eyes. [ let

m/y groins in m/y iliac arteries the needles introduce the

m/yseH go. Mly fingers grope for your hairs which they

I

fluid which paralyses mle, mly kidneys are fit to burst,

touch and cause to resonate. A very audible music now

they press on m/y overheated intestines, in m/y throat

makes itseH heard. At the same time you sing. The sounds

the fluid introduced into mly carotids spreads to mly

rise spread grow louder. The movement with which you

brain, it blows all m I y circuits, m I y tongue chokes m I e

spin as you bear mle away grows faster. Now we are

striving to emerge from mly mouth. I recall the soft

spinning rapidly at the top of the palm-trees and sudcontact of breasts and bellies the slow sinuous comings denly mly most ravishing one you begin to laugh while

and goings the warmth of the skins the delicacy of touchyou draw ml e in a straight line above the island dweling in the gehenna to which you have condemned mle lings towards the sea.

mly tormentor without entrails all reassembled on m/e

horribly confined exploding into a thousand inIpotent

fragments to disjoin mle completely.

Mly vile one I recall the summer sky traversed by heat

A great tumult on the circle awakens m/e. Already you

haze in the black night where you have confined m/e.

return with the news. The first women to awaken have

Mly eyes are covered, m/y ears are stopped, m/y throat

announced the pure and sinIple disappearance of the

is gagged to my lips' edge, mly armpits are filled, mly

vowels. Cousternation reigns. Numerous lamentations

navel is knotted, m/y vagina is packed from mly uterus

are heard. You must write down the news for m/e if [

to mly labia, mly colon is blocked to mly anus. I recall

am to understand its meaning. Your lip your tongue

the clouds of dust, I still have in mind the reflections of

modulate the new language in guttural sounds, the

102

103

uttered consonants jostled one against the other produce

gruntings gratings scrapings of the vocal cords, your voice

untried in this pronunciation speeds up or slows down

and yet you cannot stop talking. The novel effect of the

movement of your cheeks and mouth the difficulty the

sounds have in making their way out of your mouth are

[ leave you alone in the room where you have spoken to

so comical that [ choke with laughter, [ fall over backmle as to a stranger where you have not recognized mle wards, mly tears stream, [ regard you still and silent, [

despite the glare of the lanterns. At mly order the women

am increasingly overcome by laughter, suddenly you too

prepare 'm/y severed limbs mly arms mly thighs mly

are affected, you burst out, your cheeks colour, you fall

legs whose flesh is meticulously removed and boiled for

over backwards as the women's clamour is heard outside

a long time, they offer it to you surrounded by different

their interpellations the long incomprehensible phrases

sauces on glittering plates each plate bearing a different

pronounced by one of them and repeated interminably

name to please you. You consume them readily their

by many others. A new arrival makes heard at regular

appellations do not strike you with astonishment. Bringintervals the lugubrious sound of a tom-tom which she ing you a finger-bowl and crystallized fruits the women

beats to a funereal rhythm. The unwonted resonances of

inform you of what and of whom you have eaten. Imthe now transformed language repeated by more and mediately you begin to vomit, a profuse perspiration

more voices produce uncontrollable waves movements of

appears on your cheeks on your temples without your

air masses of clouds. A heavy rumbling is heard, lightning

shedding a tear, you fall flat on your face your stomach

flashes follow each other blindingly, the storm breaks

utterly revolted hiccups preventing you from resuming

with such a din as at once to cover the sound of the

breathing, the women support you beneath the arms,

thousands of voices. Now the women flee along the sandy

they speak to you at length whispering enumerating each

island paths seeking the shelter of the open pavilions.

of the parts you have eaten while without begging for

The rain has begun to patter. The tom-tom is being

mercy you empty yourseH completely the nutriment now

beaten vigorously somewhere in the distance this time to

replaced by long green spurts of bile then by splashes of

a rapid rhythm. Their voices join in song. The smell of

blood your tongue outside your mouth, you choke, you

the wet leaves and the grass in the gardens comes to ml e

spit mle out, you vomit mle up, you lose all your colour,

overwhelmingly, you stand opposite mle, [ see you are

momentarily you faint crying that [ am accursed, when

crying and laughing at the same time heifer sucklingyour consciousness and memory return you reject mle lamb mly best-beloved may grief abandon you for ever.

anew with violence without interruption.

104

105

which devour them dragging mle down, later mly head

is tom off, mly eyes momentarily turned upwards in

mly head as it falls see cruellest of all monsters the

beautiful movement you employ to throw mIY mutilated

trunk mly pelvis as far as possible.

The two black boats approach each other bearing an

identical violet sign. The water of the sea is flat. It holds

a blue and golden light. When the one and the other

boat are side by side you draw yourself up to your full

height turned towards m/e. Without a signal the combat

begins, arms seeking arms, shoulders touching shoulders,

legs thighs pressed against the sides of the boats, bare feet

scrape the wood essaying rapid movements to straddle

both boats at once. 1 see that deep down sharks shadow

the sea coming and going incessantly. Suddenly I am

Cursed be the frenzy which grips mle on hearing your

afraid, 1 attempt to repel you, I press with the flat of

voice all naked detached from your body far from your

mly hands on the side of mly boat, 1 push on yours, I

throat that emits it. Enough to burst the vessels of mly

try to separate them, 1 double up with the exertion. Then

temples behind m/y eyes at the surface of the auricles of

you, you strike a blow on the back of mly neck with the

mly heart, the sound-wave reaches m/e. It affects m/y

edge of your hand. 1 strive to stand up, you press with

ears the hammer-bones violently strike the anvils the

both palms on mly bare back, so raising yourself up you

semicircular canals the cochleas begin to whirl, mly

arch your back, you let yourself glide behind ml e to the

entire brain reels, mly throat contracts, mly eyes subbottom of mly boat. 1 start to tremble, mly hair stands jected to an enormous pressure begin to flow, m/y tongue

on end while both mly hands are grasped by your hands

issues from mly mouth. M/y lungs expelling all their

behind mly loins. You encircle mle with one of your

contained air retract at an insane speed. Your voice

arms, you lift mle up. One of mly legs comes in contact

invades m I e further still, it descends like a tendril to the

with the water, it is brutally tom off by the open mouth

bottom of mly stomach, it traverses the duodenum, it

of one of the sharks. M/y other leg is bent at a right

follows every convolution of mly intestines, it hunts ml e

angle. Well-braced against the side of mly boat you

down, it batters from within against all mlY parietes, I

throw mle down, you cast both mly arms to the sharks

am crammed to bursting in all mly hollow places, 1 am

106

107

finally cut to pieces, m/y anns m/y legs dangle, as thc

various winds assailing us. The orifices multiply over our

pressure mounts they eventually fall off. Darkness falls

two bodies causing m/y skin and your skin to burst alike.

in the orbits of m/y eyes on m/y eardrums in m/y

They are prolonged by tunnels whence the blood does

larynx. M/y neck involved bends and separates from

not spurt. The wind enters everywhere, in every hole. 1

feel it passing from your stomach into mline, it has a

�/Y trunk, m/y entire body separated into its parts

directs black stomach black intestines black heart vulva

passage at the level of the openings in our two throats,

green bile into the black darkness inhabited only by your

it is engulfed in the galleries created in our joined

voice, that hateful voice m/y dearest one pursuing m/e

shoulders, it glides into the crevices of the muscles of our

tracking m/c down losing m/e undoing m/e finishing

joined ru:ms. It becomes so violent that it precipitates us

m/e off.

one against the other, it brings us down, it flattens us.

Under its pressure there is nothing else to do but to

attempt 'to insinuate ourselves one into the other. Your

eyes shine. Your hair tosses, it flails against your cheeks,

it catches m le on the forehead. The openings are now

innumerable in the abdomens in your chest and mine

along our intertwined limbs, they are to be seen everywhere, everywhere the same wind traverses you traverses m/e. M/y fingers sink into the orifices in your back your

loins, your fingers are inserted into the holes in mly neck

m/y cranium. In the end a tempest arrives, it rushes right

through us, scattering the muscles. First 1 hear your

cries, then 1 hear m/yself cry out as you do, there is a

Perforations occur in your body and in m/y body joined

bellowing of sirens, they reverberate within the gaping

together, our homologously linked muscles separate, the

tunnels on either side of our two bodies which now confirst current of air that infiltrates into the breach spreads stitute a single organism pervaded by vibrations quiverat a crazy speed, creating a squall within you and within ing full of its own currents, is it not so mly dearest ?

mle simultaneously. You shake mle and 1 do the same

to you. Your teeth clash against m/y teeth. A wheezing

issues from your mouth and maybe from mly own. You

sway from side to side and so do 1. 1 perceive all the

108

109

from your sight. Then I tear them up very quickly, 1 pull

at the stalks, 1 throw them as far as I can crawling over

the vegetables while swallowing one inunediately vomited

whole crushing them between mly powerful palms causing them to burst as water-spray and pips, then I run Terror grips mle to see you so pitiless and so serene. I

upright, I trample them aU under your eyes, 1 come and

draw near you, you do not look at mle, I address you

go ardently destroying the entire crop that you have

you do not answer m I e, I make gestures of allegiance you

requisitioned for the island. Then you look at mle, then

ignore them turned stolidly towards the field of pumpkins

you curse; mle, you invoke against mle infernal Persewhose number you examine, fear descends to the hollows phone th� triple goddess, your knees your fists batter mle,

of mly knees, I can hardly stand, I sigh very loudly, the

there is pi explosion at mly temples, your hate-filled

greatest cold reaches ml e between mly shoulderblades

words hiss in mly ears, I see your eyes and mly knees

at mly loins in mly plexus. I begin to groan, I complain

m I y most intractable one buckle finally before you.

in a strident voice, I utter all the words I know. You

indifferent you move along the paths of the kitchengarden. Already the notebook you hold at eye-level is covered with signs. I begin to dance very clumsily with

the jerky movements of a puppet, you do not see m/e. I

sing a song which is known to you, I throw m/yself flat

on mly face in your path, you step over mle and continue your gaze fixed only on the vegetables which trail on the ground. I speak to you of mly long march of mly

unbroken zeal, you do not listen to ml e, only the field

at your feet exacts your attention. From time to time you

brush off a fly which alights on your cheek. At this

Against your ankles deeply embedded in the ground

moment which I take as a signa1 1 respond with the

there occurs a movement, particles separate, small stones

gesture of reconciliation, you take no notice, you saunter

are loosened. The first snake to coil itself round one of

along the avenues unhurriedly gliding on your feet. At

your ankles is black glistening bearing orange bands. It

a given moment I let m/yself fall on a cluster of pumptwines, it circles, it thrusts its fork-tongued mouth against kins which strike m I y stomach violently hiding them

your calf, it gains the bend of your knee and there sup-

1 10

1 1 1

ports itself, it winds around your knee, it reaches your

thigh where it touches the internal muscles and the

adductors on the inner side. The debris accumulates at

the base of your legs. Your other leg is seized covered

with rings ligated. Hundreds of ap'ertures now lead to

within the shifting ground. Three snakes, then eleven

I walk over the black earth It is strewn with cherry

.

then scores crawl out. All are black and bear orange

blossom. I look at the black and humid earth touched by

bands. They promptly advance their mouths over the

m/y bare feet. I am halted by contact with something

ground which they barely touch. Their writhings bring

soft. Under the soles of m/y feet I see your eyeballs there,

them against your legs. They enlace you. At a given

I have embedded them somewhat. Deprived of eyelids

moment they cover you all over. Some dangle slackly

you gaze at m/e in the mounds of earth, your eyes gaze

from your immobilized forearms. Others descend on your

at m/e, � start back, I bend down, I throw m/yse1f flat

trunk, glide between your breasts. Some wind between

on m/y face to gather them in the hollow of m/y hands.

your shoulderblades. One of them is wound right round

It is your closed lips thrown a little further off that m/y

your neck. Another seeks to touch your eyes covered by

hands touch. Your whole body is in fragments here, I

your hair. At the first contact a shudder spreads over the

pick up your hair in handfuls, your nose is at some

surface of your skin to your entire body, your hairdistance, your face is all dispersed. I begin to cry o�t follicles erect and the tips of your breasts. Your skin

with all m/y might, I crawl along the ground m/y hair

registers another series of reactions a barely perceptible

on end. I recognize one of your arms then the other. I

watery ooze above your lips at the bends of your elbows

find your two breasts your severed throat, I touch your

and your knees then a streaming perspiration a shower

outspread hands, your thighs are here, your knees your

of sweat soaking your hair your armpits and your pubic

legs all intact. I collapse over your belly, tears of blood

fleece trickling down your legs over the maM of snakes

flow over m I y cheeks, I call to you in a strident voice,

dropping to your feet moistening the shifted earth.

m/y heart makes m/e feel like death leaping into m/y

Finally green violet red stains appear in patches, your

mouth. I perceive your ears. I cover them with kisses.

throat is stained at the carotid, your skin flakes at a

Your body is spread still warm bleeding over the entire

growing number of places. The snakes have finally consurface of the ploughed field. I gather you up piece by cealed every part of your body. Then in your tum you

piece. I reaMemble you. I lick each of your parts sullied

begin slowly to coil and uncoil m/y most foul one sinuous

by the earth I speak to you. I am seized by'vomiting, 1

.

black orange.

choke, 1 shriek, I speak to you, 1 yearn for you with such

1 1 2

1 1 3

marvellous strength that all of a sudden the pieces fall

together, you don't have a finger or a fragment missing.

Then 1 begin to breathe into your half-open mouth into

your nose your ears your vulva, 1 breathe without ceas

THE CORPORI CAVERNOSA THE

ing lying here on you naked in the black earth. Cherry

VAGINAL BULBS THE SKELETON

blossom falls on you, 1 brush it aside.

THE -yERTEBRAL COLUMN THE

CLAVICLES THE RIBS THE

STERNUM THE HUMERI THE RADII

THE PLNAE THE CARPALS THE

METACARPALS THE PHALANGES

THE JLIAC BONES THE PELVIS THE

SACRUM THE COCCYX THE

FEMORA THE PATELLAE THE

FIBULAE THE TIBIAE THE TARSALS

Sappho when 1 beseech her causes a violet lilac-smelling

THE METATARSALS THE CRURALS

rain to fall over the island. 1 do not seek the shelter of

THE MASTOIDS THE ORBITS THE

the trees under pretext of escaping the moisture or to

PATELLAE THE MONS PUBIS THE

contemplate the divers signs multiplying between earth

VULVA THE WOMB THE BLADDER

and sky. 1 stand head erect, mouth open, 1 thank Sappho

THE INTESTINES THE KIDNEYS

the very tender goddess while you m/y very radiant one

hold m/y hands. The clouds are hardly any darker than

THE SPLEEN THE LIVER THE GALLthe water dripping from them, the sun lights them trans

BLADDER THE STOMACH THE

parently, the hills are their exact replica the other way

LUNGS THE HEART

round violet rounded, the olive-trees seem paler by contrast more silver than green. You release m/y hands to undo my girdle, you remove m/y clothes, 1 watch you

doing this, you too are naked, your skin is white in the

1 14

violet light, your lips are mauve, the chestnut of your eyes

is mauve your hair is brown mauve, you raise your antIS,

you begin to stir singing, you whistle between your teeth,

you sing, loudly I praise Sappho the all-attentive, you

recapitulate m/y phrases in your song, you spin them

out, you modulate them interminably, you rotate on

You are among the lavender pickers. The sun is already

yourself, the water strikes your cheeks your shoulders

high over the plateau. I see the rectilinear movement of

your breasts your belly your back your buttocks your

your file over the red dry earth. The brims of the straw

thighs your calves, violet rings appear on your skin, they

hats do not flap in the wind. No bird cries. The sea is

enlarge progressively, immense circles cover your entire

visible right in front of you a uniform blue paled by the

body, m/y fingers touch them while you laugh, you lift

light at the foot of the highest cliff of the island. I have

your feet so that their soles may be stained in their tum,

abandoned the lookout for the fishing-boats whose arrival

you fall backwards on the sand all violet, the inward of

I ought to anoounce with blasts of the conch. M/y empty

your arms and thighs is involved, I inhale you m/y very

place at the end of the mole can be seen from everywhere.

odoriferous one, you smell very headily of lilac, Sappho

I progress in a series of leaps, oftenest I lie flat on m/y

could have done no better by clasping you against her

face at the edge of the field. I canoot distinguish your

violet breasts, now I lick you, you roll over and over,

silhouette from the place I occupy. When at last it is

thousands of grains of violet sand sting your body, you

discernible, one of the women sigoals a rest pause. One

are aglow with all your fires, your hair your pubic fleece

after the other they let the large jute sacks fall to the

that of your armpits is definitively violet and when as

ground. You, you remain standing turning your back to

they say I look deep into your violet eyes m/y adored

m / e regarding the sea straight in front of you. At a given

one I do not recognize them, you take hold of m/y

moment you bring to your mouth the gourd fastened to

fingers so they may touch your body so I may familiarize

your belt and drink slowly. A woman begins to sing in a

m/yself with your new appearance so I may interpret

very loud voice squatting on her heels. Another takes her

you m/y most mauve one, glory to Sappho over centuries

flute to accompany the voice. The smell of the lavender

of centuries.

is heady, there is a great movement of bees wasps hornets

butterflies. I have to stay quiet hidden. Presently when

your column advances towards the sea I shall endeavour

to approach you from behind calling to you and making

you come to m/e without the others taking m/e by

I I 6

I I7

surprise. I regard your back the nape of your neck your

M/y fingers are spread out nailed down, mly palms are

hair. I experience a wish to see your eyes. Then you turn

turned towards the sun, the metacarpals the phalanges

round, you look across to where I am, you march with

are extended. M/y hands are like stars. I see at mly

great strides, you move towards ml e, now you are runwrists the blue veins, a broad network on the inside of ning, I hear you call out, you are above ml e, you

m/y arms. You apply your new procedure to m/e to

dominate m I e with your full stature, you laugh, you fall

inoculate the sun, the veins and artC;ries of m/y wrists

on ml e before I have time to speak, your hair trails over

artificially dilated. You are obliged to hold m I e on the

mly eyes, the sky I see through it quivers, I feel you

ground because of the shaking of mly body. The tips of

striking mly ribs, you ask in a hissing voice if I wish to

your fingers are sheathed in supple mirrors. They radiate

be expelled from this land blessed above all others because

they cat,ch the heat they irradiate they burn. M/y veins

of mly very great folly, you condemn ml e to every hell,

and arteries affected gradually catch fire. A subtle

you spit in mly eyes, you ask mle how many times it

warmth, reaches m/y palms m/y arms m/y elbows under

will be necessary to depart once more to travel to find a

m/y armpits. M/y heart ventricles and auricles suddenly

place to live, you ask m I e if I wish to die and at the

begin to explode. Your lips are applied firmly to mly

moment I say yes your strong hand falls on mle, darkthroat. The heat becomes explosive. Colours violet orange ness covers mly eyes, I fee! the cold spreading up mly

red pervade m/y entire body, m/y eyes are caught in the

thighs.

overthrow the fall of intense colouration, they fall they

fall, I receive them on m/y belly. M/y ears lips tongue

abandon mle in their turn, they bound here and there

on mly breasts and mly thighs. You diffuse the sun's

fire over ml e, you impose it on ml e without pause, dispersed throughout the circuits of m/y blood it fastens on m/y liver m/y lungs m/y spleen. A smell of burnt flesh

rises, now you hold ml e round the waist, the roasting

reaches you, a smoke-screen forms before your eyes, the

muscles splutter disappearing around our cheeks. At last

our blackened skulls clash together, at last boneless with

black holes to see you with without hands to touch you

I am you you are m/e irreversibly mly best-beloved.

1 18

1 19

covers your teeth when you leap on mly back taking

m/e by surpriae your claws immediately gripping mle

unbalancing m/e. At a given moment I go with you to

bathe. M/y fur impregnated with water weigbs mle

down. I cling to you until your grey hairs drip with water

�

in their turn. Only your face is dry and sleek, m/y lips

our .limbs gathered. under you you progress in mly

and tongue touch it

dU'ectiOn, your belly

as I take you in m/y arms.

IS flush with the ground, your ears

are turned back over your head, a growling issues from

your mouth while you advance slowly halting at every

st� to . take cover surveying ml e from ambush your

chin resting on your forepaws. Your fur is grey streaked

with polar blue save on the belly where it is a golden

beige, it ensheathes your neck your skull all round your

cheeks, only your female face is exposed your forehead

n� eyes cheeks chin lips. At times you leap with your

felme bound to reach mle with your paws seizing mle

I begin with the tips of your fingers, I chew the phalanges

by the neck, I struggle, I make you roll on mle mly

I crunch the metacarpals the carpals, I slaver at your

mouth seeking your mouth. You are the same size as all

wrists, I disarticulate the ulnae with great delicacy, I

the others. But you progress doubled up in kangaroo

exert pressure on the trochlea, I tear away the biceps

fashion. I am seized with a kind of frivolity. I make

from the humerus, I devour it, I eat m/y fill of you mly

extravagant bounds which distance mle from you, they

so delectable one, mly jaws snap, I swallow you, I gulp

are not the gambols of kids but precise calculated leaps

you down. Separated from the acromion both your arms

which might equally bring mle near to you, I enjoy mly

are detached from your shoulders. You sovereign radiant

springiness. And then I find it pleasurable when I touch

you regard m/e. M/y saliva spreads over your breasts,

mly fur with mly mouth, then I make m/y way towards

long fragments of flesh separate from the muscles falling

you, I begin to nibble the hairs of your neck of your loins

over your neck staining your white throat, carefully I

your belly your back. I learn with you the game cats

take them between m/y teeth, I chew them voraciously,

play when they roll up into a ball when they curl up on

then I look at you and I am overwhelmed with great pity

themselves when they prepare to pounce on each other.

to see you so mutilated deprived of both your arms your

The possible combinations are very many. A smile un-

1 2 1

120

bust bloodied. The food you are weighs on mle within

of mly anguish, then I implore the great goddess mly

mly stomach, I am suddenly revolted, I vomit you up,

mother and I say to her mother mother why have you

a great liquid half-digested stinking steaming mass falls

forsaken mle, she remains silent while you sleep, not a

on your belly. You become very pale at this point you

breath of wind stirs mlY hair, I cry out in mly distress

throw yourself back with a great cry, tears spurt strongly

mother mother why have you forsaken mle, someone

from your eyes spattering ml e, you say it is unbearable

turns over groaning in her sleep, I move crawling toward

to see mle vomit you up, I am overcome by greater pity

the top of the garden, I leave you mly dearest, hardly

than ever, I begin to eat you again as fast as I can mly

have I left the place where you lie than I can no longer

so adored one I lick the last scraps on your belly, I get

perceive you in the expanse of sleeping bodies, now I

rid of the traces of blood, I absorb you mly very precious

shriek fit:to burst mly lungs, not one of you awakens, yet

one, I retain you within ml e.

mly voice issues so powerfully from mly throat that it

injures �/e in passage, I do not recognize it, a red mist

comes before mly eyes, a bloody sweat traverses mly

pores, suddenly it covers mle entirely, mly very tears

dripping in great drops on mly arms stain them with

blood, bloody mly saliva falling in strings from mly

mouth, red the moon when she appears in the sky red the

earth red the night I see all red around m I e, I cry out

in mly great distress mother mother why have you forsaken ml e, I hear nothing but the continued stridulations of the crickets, the low close-packed crowns of the olivetrees do not separate to make way for her coming to mle I am at the Golgotha you have all abandoned. You

bare-footed her black hair and garments visible between

sleep among the women a paper tigress, you sleep one

the pale leaves, I tum towards you but you are all

arm folded over your head your hair wildly disposed

asleep.

around your face, you resemble one of the Gorgons

terrible powerful ruddy in dream. During this period

deprived of the aid of your strength I lie face to the

ground, fear grips ml e and the desire to go on living

with you in this garden, not one of you knows anything

1 23

prevents mly voice issuing from mly throat. M/y

muscles stiffened by fatigue eventually immobilize m/e.

Then 1 submit to the power of the waves. The water

enters by mly mouth by mly lunga, 1 cannot spit it all

out again, as the pressure grows mly intestines mly

1 swim far out to sea that here bears thousands of seaweeds

stomach are invaded, mly parietes burst, the skin of mly

to look for you. 1 am totally enveloped in the black liquid

belly splits apart, the water enters and leaves ml e. An

mass, mly body is rolled by the water rolled up in the

obscurity develops the night of mly body redoubling the

vegetation. No moon, no stars are visible. 1 have lost

other, suddenly it seems to ml e that you are the water

sight of the island shores, 1 do not perceive the fisherwhich comes and goes in the closest confines of mly body women's boats drawn up with their flickering lights. The

mly very glorious one mly most eternal beloved, it seems

warm changing waves cradle mle bear mle away. Somethat you 'are that which engulfs mle now and for ever times a fish comes alongside brushes against ml e, only

without mly desiring any of all you others to implore

its motion is perceptible, 1 cannot estimate its size. The

the goddesses for ml e.

sound of the sea boomings rumblinga rattlinga impacts

clashinga surginga enters mly ears making mly eardrums

vibrate, a pain arises there, reverberates within mly

brain. 1 seek you in the dark of the sea and the dark of

the night which 1 cannot distinguish, 1 emerge from the

water, mly head shoulders torso lifted as far as mly

waist pushing down on the water with mly lega and mly

arms straining mly loins to look as far as possible. You

are nowhere in this mass your white body spread on the

surface of the water your shoulders your back lying there

your hair dragging behind your eyes closed. Great seaweeds cling to mly neck mly shoulderblades mly waist mly pubis mly thighs. 1 shout your name whenever 1

am not made breathless by exertion. 1 do not hear your

voice answering m/e. The sea murmurs. There are no

bird-calls at this time. 1 am seized with hoarseness which

Abominable mistress I am bled dry by you. Buzzings

affect mly ears the sound of your intennittent gasping

respiration the sound of your frenetic voice, still from

time to time I seem to hear your laughter. You shall not

wring from m le the cries of a sow whose throat is being

slit. Besides it is too late. M/y arteries have been severed,

I wrench out your teeth one by one, your minuscule

my veins systematically dilated. The plantar peroneal

short and square incisors your well-developed pointed

tibial femoral iliac carotid ulnar radial arteries are most

canines your premolars I arrange them in front of ml e,

rudely severed, slashed is the better word. M I y saphenous

one by one I see them gleaming, they are removed with

femoral iliac axilliary basiIic cephalic radial jugular

their roots , to whom should 1 offer them if not to Sappho

,

veins are kept open by glass pipettes inserted therein. 1

the most distant telling her that reassembled they condo not hear mly blood running away. M/y heart is stitute the most living necklace ever to be seen by female

squeezed sponged, it bounds intennittently or else it

eyes. I ask you which of us shall wear it, you · part your

suddenly comes to a halt, it goes by fits and starts. M/y

lips mly mutilated one over your bloodstained gums, 1

blood quits mly brain, it is leached from my face by

insert mly tongue into each socket in succession, 1 probe

mly temporal arteries by mly facial veins, mly cheeks

your wounds, mly lips mly fingers receive your blood,

are hollowed, mly blood leaves mly attached limbs mly

with mly mouth with mly hands 1 make red marks and

arms legs groins, it does not flow through mly intestines,

traces on your body, your mouth bleeds without stopping,

I am no longer nourished, mly lungs are not oxygenated,

you do not complain mly so silent one, you regard mle

mly breathing is increasingly more difficult. I see how

fixedly while in great haste I cover your body with great

completely emptied with no more thickness than a geosigns, while I am all gooseflesh, while 1 seize the small graphical map mly skin is going to be stretched out taut

shreds of your ripped flesh between mly intact teeth,

by you mly organs all flat falling spontaneously mly

while you smile horribly at mle you most beautiful of

bones turned into powder crumbling, m I y entire body

all women.

now absolutely ready to be fastened with drawing-pins

on your wall, may you be accursed once and for all you

whom I clearly see standing sometimes passing your

fingers over mly flattened body seeking the traces of

fonner canals of fonner orifices.

127

The women carry m / e by force to the theatre in the

middle of the garden. I struggle. More than one strikes

m/e and holds m/e sti1L There they lay m/e on the

ground limbs tied together a gag in m/y mouth com

THE OESOPHAGUS THE BRAIN THE

pelling m/ e to look. Your entire body is fixed petrified in

CIRCULATION THE RESPIRATION

an iridescent block of plastic. I see your wide-open eyes,

THE NUTRITION THE ELIMINA

I see your smiling mouth, I see your hair floating as when

you run,' I see your arms spread on either side of you

TION THE DEFAECATION THE REyour legs halted in mid-stride, I see your belly, I see your PRODUCTION [XX + XX XX] THE

sex, I see your shoulders, I see your breasts. The sun

=

REACTIONS PLEASURE EMOTION

makes the whole block shine, your cheeks sparkle, your

VISION SMELL TASTE TOUCH

eyes are dazzling. Then I faint away. The women compel

m/e to go on looking at you making m/e regain con

HEARING THE VOCAL CORDS THE

sciousness. I try with all m/y might to cry out. The gag

CRIES THE WAILINGS THE

chokes m/e, I struggle, I tug at m/y bonds, I weep with

MURMURS THE HOARSENESS THE

great sobs, I look at you in your full height you loom

SOBS THE SHRIEKS THE VOCIFERAover m/e, m/e cast at your feet, I look at you and I see

TIONS THE WORDS THE SILENCES

that you look at m/e too, m/y heart jolts, something

explodes in m/y chest, so you are alive there completely

THE WHISPERINGS THE MODULAimprisoned in that matrix by what means goddesses, you

TIONS THE SONGS THE

are alive, you look at m/e day of horror and joy, I

STRIDENCIES THE LAUGHS THE

struggle even as they finally untie m/ e, I rush towards

VOCAL OUTBURSTS THE LOCOyou, I embrace you, I speak to you, you do not stir, you

look at m/ e, I see your eyes close enough to touch you.

MOTION

I turn round towards the women grouped at the foot of

the statue, I clasp their knees, I implore them very loudly

weeping to place m/ e with you there inside that matrix.

128

1 29

hold it straight before you ainIing it at the bodies of the

sharks, you follow their movements the crackling of the

bullets making your forearms your arms your shoulders

shudder. Several of them are hit and collide in their

attempts to flee. The sea lit up by the lamp is stained

I am she who holds the secret of your name. I retain its

with their orange blood while they arrive in increasing

syllables behind mly closed mouth even while I would

numbers crowding now beneath the boat creating such

rather cry them out over the sea so that they might fall

eddies that it is in danger of capsizing you firing on them

and be sombrely engulfed therein. The pitching of the

teeth clenched a soft whistle issuing from your lips. I

boat displaces the violet image of the moon from here to

begin to. sing in a loud voice carried away by the combat

there to one or other side of its axis. I sit up again, I

with extravagant gestures raising mlyself up and dropregard the sky, I implore you. I can no longer bear alone ping down on to mly heels then suddenly upright again

the burden of the name which designates you mly very

erect tense mouth open to shout your name once just

beautiful one your neck your cheeks your gaze your

once mly dearest one, you can permit it before what I

glance your shoulders your breasts your arms your belly

know must be the devouring of our bodies by the imyour sex your back your buttocks your thighs your legs patient creatures. It is then, changing your target divinyour ankles your bare feet. You stand upright beside ml e ing what I am about to do, that you turn the barrel of

on the deck your arms folded across your breast without

your weapon against ml e fierce silent casting ml e out

speaking challenging mle to break the silence brutally

into the silence of the infinite spheres sole bearer of the

to impress on it the syllables of your accursed name. You

secret of your name alone with you mly most unknown

smile your lips baring your teeth your head flung back

now and for ever, so be it.

now and again tossing your hair. You have no fear of

mle, you say, now while the sharks cruise incessantly in

the d,eepest silence in the waters of the sea. Their violet

bulks move rapidly returning to their point of departure

making the boat the point of intersection of their comings and goings. At a given moment you illuminate them with a powerful lamp a luminous staff. Instantly they

scatter, then they return describing ever-decreasing circles

around the boat. You seize your submachine-gun, you

1 30

culousness that no ashes of mline will remain on the

I have not the freedom of the city in the place where

earth or traces in the memory. But in the secret privacy

you live. The women have fashioned a dtunmy after

of mly body 1 hear a soft and furious growling, your

mly image. Now it burns on the vast square, I see it, the

name pervades and elates mle, given that you mly

flames reach m I y feet, the smoke envelops m I e, through

dearest one retain and harbour m I e within you I live

sulphur-coloured clouds I perceive the dense crowd I

for ever in the memory of the centuries, so be it.

hear the sorts of joyous songs which rise to their li�.

They have bared their breasts as a sign of satisfaction.

You are nowhere or else you are hiding overcome by

distress and humiliation seeking the shade of the gardens

and the sound of water on the terraces, or else you are

under strict surveillance held in· some place constrained

to hear them in their song of death in which they tear

mle limb from limb. But it were better mly so sensitive

one that you were blind rather than watch wide-eyed

what I endure at their behest The flames have reached

mly naked belly mly waist mly breasts, blisters form

where the skin burst with a disgusting sound. M/y but.

tocks mly back held as far away as possible are involved

The eye of your stomach is closed. 1 kiss its swarthy lid.

in their tum enveloped in the flames the entire skin

The girdle of eyes that stretches from one hip to the other

crackling fragmented, only mly throat and face still

below your navel regards mle whole. Drowsiness over·

emerge intact. The fire takes hold of mly intestines, I

takes m/e. 1 shake mly neck and head with all mly

writhe in slow sinusoidal movements, I rise up, I drop

might 1 apply mly mouth to the eyes of your belly. 1

down, the fire perforates mly chest shaking mle right

make them roll under mly lips one by one. They watch

through, then I start to weep tears in sufficient quantity

ml e, they all begin to shed tears together, 1 see them

to extinguish several fires, I complain in a very loud

flow over your thighs and knees while you laugh with

voice in great revolt and anger against the wrong they

your single mouth, clasp ml e with your large hands. 1

do mle beside you against the infamy the opprobrium

am surrounded by the brilliance of your multiple eyes.

with which they overwhelm mle at a time when there

A blue halo rises from the manifold whites. The eyes

are no longer any criminals, I cry out let them do it if

edging your pubis are closed. Each eye in the fold of

they dare let them destroy ml e with such perfect meti.

133

132

your elbow watches ml e. At your wrists the lids of the

1 have such a desire to weep that a pain catclIes the

eyes which accompany the movements of your hands

interior of mly thorax mly abdomen, the tears start

flutter. 1 seek your mouth with mly mouth. 1 perceive

from mly eyes, they inundate you from above down with

the two eyes of your face, they watch m/e. Weakness

marvellous force, then 1 look at you, you are on the

overcomes m/e. Moving away from you 1 see that all

other side of this water, as soon as you near mle mly

the eyes of your body are fixed attentively on the

tears fall heavily on your feet making you start, they

different autonomous parts of mly body in their actions

soak your hair your pubic hairs your armpits, your dampin relation to one another. Mly muscles affected suddenly ened skin clIanges its smell. 1 begin to hold you at arm's

convulse. 1 see distinctly the gleam of your eyes ranged

length, 1 compel you to move away from m/e. Your lips

along the inside of your thighs, they stare at the skin of

part over your well-squared teeth, then something promly belly close by. 1 see the winking of the ocular bracevokes mJe to quit your person altogether as I see what lets at your ankles. 1 see the two long rows which descend

you are engaged in doing, you file your teeth under your

from your shoulders to the tip of your breasts. Mly

retracted lips, the dull whitish dust of the enamel issues

entire body is riddled by your gaze. It immobilizes ml e.

from your mouth, you sharpen your teeth, you stop to

A mist comes before mly eyes. Slackness takes mle from

look at m I e, all the white debris exhaled by you catclIes

the brain to the hollow of mly loins, 1 am dizzy, 1 totter,

ml e in full face, hurriedly I open mly eyes to look at

1 try to compel your eyes to a convergence, but at this

you, you are still nearby, you smile incessantly with your

point mly all-seeing one you suddenly disintegrate mle

pointed teeth, m/y tears flow anew, I weep with increasall your eyes fixed on m/e.

ing ardour while your hands touch m/e, while you provoke mle with your smiles and words to weep still more, but you know it you know it, 1 catch your sickness, you

know it 1 am so sick from you that 1 am extremely

happy.

You are present at the ceremony of the vulvas lost and

found. Newly-arrived in the island you are unfamiliar

with the ritual. 1 make you sit on the grass beside m/ e,

1 34

135

I try to keep you infolllled mly voice barely making

itself heard amidst the sound of the drums the flutes the

strident voices. The vulvas are represented by blue yellow

green black violet red butterflies, their bodies are the

clitorises, their wings are the labia, their fluttering represents the throbbing of the vulvas. Like you mly refound They let their ears droop on their shoulders, you, you

one mly dearest the butterflies return from a long

approach, you touch their lobes, then they move them

journey. The brown and yellow Camberwell beauties the

against their c1Ieeks their shoulders and further back

beautiful violet and pink pamassians the modest greyagainst their hair and necks. You tease them, you nibble yellow alucites the snowy bombyxes the giant orange

their ears. you lick them, you blow on them, with angelic

blue ultramarine yellow pink violet uranias the blue

patience they move the trunks of their mouths sucking

arguses the peacocks with their large ocelli the swallowyou on the lips the c1Ieeks and breasts addressing you, tails splashed with black red blue the mauve orange

you do not understand them, you take mle to task, 1

violet green red admirals barely visible for a moment so

laugh, 1 see their gaze fixed centred on you, some of

rapid is their flight, the priestesses welcome them on the

them are compelled to move their heads in order to see

island shore. They wear violet dalmatics. They dance

you for their pupils are immobile, when you start to leap

clapping their hands their bare feet touching the sand

around them they turn from side to side to follow your

slowly rising and falling. The butterflies implored enmovements, you tug at their necklaces of teeth, your treated not to make the fatal voyage across the sea return

hands caress the fleece of their breasts whic1I resembles

in clouds, they obscure the sun until dispersed over the

that of your pubis. You rest your fingers on the buttergardens their separate colours become apparent. The flies stuck to their shoulders, one of them has a small rat

priestesses wish them welcome and long life. The exapplied to her c1Ieek, she takes your hand that you may hausted butterflies alight on the shoulders of the women

caress it, as you flinc1I she makes you inducements with

present. Your arms are covered with them. Then mly

her mouth and its suctorial trunk, and 1, 1 laugh leaning

adored mly most marvellous one I show you how to

backwards because of this, irritated, you jostle ml e, you

pick them up without spoiling their wings, 1 lick their

throw yourself on their group, you tug at their longbodies delicately to give them new strength. Five blue lobed ears with the greatest energy, some of them utter

arguses poise on your spread fingers. The cries the

plaintive cries, they attempt to push you away without

laughter the songs make it difficult to hear you when you

violence, but by dint of provoking them you obtain that

begin to sing in a very low voice.

whic1I you desire and speak of in a very loud voice

136

137

inviting them to do it, it is possible that they have underpalms your exact cheeks, I do not know your belly, I do stood since they suddenly fly away holding each other by

not know your breasts your light brown nipples, I do not

the hand in heavy flight flapping their ears at full speed

know your back your wide shoulderblades your wellwhile you all excited call to them to wait for you, you developed buttocks, I do not know your brown armpits

begin to run beneath them, I run to catch up with you,

your pubis your quadrangular fleece, I do not know your

they are just above our heads in a close rank, we run as

vulva, I do not know your square teeth, I do not know

fast as they fly, we rival their speed our lungs ready to

your wrists, I do not know your sharp voice, I do not

burst with the exertion, they poise at a given moment

know your straight nose, I do not know your lips, I do

above the hill, I see that they are not at all out of breath,

not know ,your ears, I do not know your hair, I am

we throw ourselves in their arms rolling on the ground,

destroyed for you, I sleep, I dream or else I am awoken,

they crush our wheezing chests against the soft tufted

I breathe, II produce cyprine, I do not desire you, I am

hair of their breasts, their trunks nuzzle at our ears our

forgetful in everything and of everything that concerns

necks blow in our hair to spread it out, I smile mly

you, I am not distressed, I am calm peaceful flaccid quiet

marvellous one when you offer your very humid vulva

incurious neutral full of composure. I am an integral

to their mouths. We cry out and laugh so loudly that the

body blocked off from itself, I do not hear mly blood

other inhabitants of the island come running to join us.

circulate mly heart beat, I do not experience the writhing of mly viscera, I have not the smallest shiver in mly hair in mly nape in mly back or in mly loins, no throbbing grips ml e in mly clitoris, I am perfectly at ease, I am unchoked, I am untouched at any point of mly body

and at this point in mly discourse I laugh with fierce

insane silent laughter mly most unknown one, I do not

bare mly teeth.

I fall into a deep sleep, I fall into a well full of perfumes,

mly lids are before mly eyes, I fall into a somnolence

where m/y memory fails. I do not know your shoulders

your white neck your shadowed eyes, I do not know your

138

1 39

Your mud-fashioned anns rise and fall, 1 see sticking out

of their clay the heads and tails of violets, the sky is

visible through the holes which indicate the position of

the eyes in your face. The smells of wet grass of sprouting

tubers of roots of rotting bark of leaf-humus excite m/y

sense of smell. Long shudders move and crawl from the

roots of mly hair to the soles of mly feet. M/y lips slide

THE GAIT THE WRITHING THE

over your clayey cheeks. Your teeth each with the round

RUNNING THE LEAPS THE BOUNDS

ness and polish of pebbles in a stream fall one by one

THE RETREATS THE GESTICULAinto mly mouth. You move gliding on your haunches

TION THE TREMORS THE CONthe iliac bones visible made of hard wood of box or ironwood. You exhale an acrid sulphur-tasting smoke in VULSIONS THE THROWING THE

which move ochre gleams. Grains of sand issue in thou

BRAWLING THE TUSSLE THE GRIPsands from your open belly. Your hand covers mly hand

PING THE HAMMERINGS THE

with glistening trails silvered with a kind of drool. I

BLOWS THE EMBRACES THE MOVEadore you like a goddess monstrous with rottenness, you

MENTS THE SWIMMING THE

torment ml e with a slow love, desire for you grips ml e

with each of your writhings, 1 recall your pale cheeks

SHOULDERS THE NECK THE

your sombre gaze your white belly. Then 1 tear the

CHEEKS THE ARMPITS THE BEND

flowers of the daisies in handfuls from the field where

OF THE ELBOWS THE ARMS THE

they have sprung up high, running 1 come to you, 1

WRISTS THE HANDS THE FISTS THE

anoint them with saliva, 1 bury them in your breast of

soft earth, 1 spit on your thighs, 1 make them shine by

KNUCKLES THE ANKLES THE

rubbing, 1 water your brown back your loins your but

KNEES THE CLAVICLES THE EYES

tocks with urine, mly palms smooth you from above

down, 1 venerate you, 1 entreat you, 1 fixedly regard

your jaws opening and closing in regular noiseless motion

without any sound reaching mly ears. The over-dry

fingers begin to drop from the ends of your arms. A pain

grips mly breast, 1 can no longer bear your gaze mly

140

most perfect one, I make holes in you with mly fists, I

over you with a great noise, the entire cumulo-nimbus

pierce you through and through, I curse you in the excess

bursts, the mist of water spreads, the shower grows, the

of mly adoration, I dismantle you, I tear from your

water flows in long jets in drops so close as to be inshoulders the great tree-branches all covered with wet divisible, eddies form at numerous places in your body,

leaves, I cast you in pieces to the ground, I crush your

your skin becomes hollowed, its elasticity allows craters

neck your face, I make you re-enter the ground whence

to develop, at last I roll in great globules on your body,

you spring so as never to return, pouncing on you stiff

I hurl m/yself slapping at your shoulders, I glide around

ened dry-eyed fallen from the top of the grave, thus I

your iliac bones, I make hollows above your breasts,

kill you mly most handsome monster and I feel the long

I stir areund in your belly where the new-formed pools

worms attacking mly belly sucking at mly viscera in

trickle and overflow on to your flanks while eyes closed

succession.

muscles ;tense you resist with all your might, I begin a

brief cry, I emit a sudden cry, I make a modulation, I

ululate, suddenly I am become a storm, I menace you.

Then you spring up, you halt, you move, you endeavour

to escape, you are stilI again, you struggle, but already

the lightning faIls on us in dazzling flashes, flash flash

blinding your blood mly blood, it spills from its conduits,

it spreads over our eyes, our hearts begin to throb together in our clitorises.

A small rain faIls on you multiple dispersed, reaches you

cell by cell, the water faIls gently, your skin struck

multiply tautens, you contract, your loins stir, long movements traverse the length of your back to the throat the plexus the belly, I grow, I fall on you with redoubled

blows, storm lightnings traverse ml e, your skin crackles,

your whole body turns to water, I spread out over you

from top to bottom, I spill like a fountain, I am poured

142

143

The women can all see you standing before mle, looking

at. mle, your nostrils inhaling mly perfume spreading

WIde whenever you do so and your head is thrown back

the blue sunlight falls on mly pale blue flowers, th�

sound of the insects buzzing is suddenly muffled, you

I am she who bellows with her three horns, I am the

approach your hand to touch the petals nearest you but

triple one, I am the formidable benevolent infernal one,

you immediately withdraw it, the silk of mly flowers

I am the black the red the white, I am the very great

tautens spreads on every aspect, mly calyces closed like

tall powerful one she whose noxious breath has poisoned

a beak like the lips of the vulva are surrounded by a flat

thousands of generations so be it, I am seated in the

blue completely diaphanous aureole. Your fingers splay

highest of the heavens in the starry circle where dwells

out, thus they alight on a heap of mly flowers a cluster,

Sappho of the violet cheeks, as with her the stars' dazzle

you utter a cry, you lack the impulse to withdraw your

r·,

I i

pales mly cheeks, I am the sovereign one, I thunder with

hand, your fingertips the skin of your palm are touched

! :'

mly three voices the clamorous the serene the strident,

by the skin of mly sieck flowers, then your entire hand

but I immediately relinquish mly indubitably hierarchiplunges into them up to the wrist then the other ' now

.

cal position at your arrival, I raise you from your kneelyou progress WIth both hands among the clusters, when ing posture, I tear your mouth from mly knees, possessed

finally your whole body advances both arms plunged up

by a lively fever I cast m/yself at your feet from which

to the shoulders in the thick of mly flowers, I take you

mly tongue licks the dust, I say blessed art thou among

utterly by surprise, your breasts are touched your throat

women who art come the first to release mle from mly

is touched, your belly is touched, your loins are touched,

condition glittering maybe but sombre nonetheless

your buttocks are touched, suddenly the nape of your

because of mly very great solitude, may you lose the

neck is very heavily burdened with an armful of mle a

sense of morning and evening of the stupid duality with

massive branch, as you advance the cascade of mly

all that flows therefrom, may you conceive yourself as I

flowers closes over you, your head too becomes subat last see you over the greatest possible space, may your merged, I am terribly tall big strong, you do not comunderstanding embrace the complexity of the play of the plain while I trickle over you all flowers all colours all

stars and of the feminine agglomerations, may you yourodours. You mly so desired one legs pliant you submit,

�ees

self in this place strive in a frenzied confrontation whether

bent you say 0 wistaria while I surfeit you ad

",tam aeternam,

in the shape of the angel or the shape of the demon, may

amen.

the music of the spheres envelop your struggle, may you

'45

'44

not lose your way ill pursuing the stillborn, may the black

bulge of your throat is sucked by mly mouth, you are

star crown you finally, giving you to sit at mly side at

agitated by violent tremors, I see you all bristling with

the apogee of the figuration of lesbian love mly most

the metal spikes, you resound, you are seized with

unknown.

frenzied movement, you struggle until I fall on you, then

we writhe against each other, ! find m/yself wounded

in mly turn by the wires that pierce you, mly skin is

rapidly avulsed, I become red with blood, I am flayed

from top; to bottom of mly body up to mly neck, the

round JUuscles the long muscles, all the fibres of mly

muscles laid bare can be enumerated, I begin to hiccup,

you do �ot release mle, you hold mle against you in

such fashion that I begin to be transfixed mly most inexorable ;one with such insistence that at this point I find nothing to say, unless it suffices to state mly most memor

Your body is all bristling with its long iron spikes,

able one that I do not seek to escape you.

your every movement makes them clash together, I regard you thus, you are immobile bizarre your eyes quite closed, I have barely to touch one of the spikes here or

there, your skin begins to quiver, rapidly the gooseflesh

spreads, it covers your entire body, I touch the iron at an

increasing number of points, I do so as lightly as I can,

your body comes to life, in short I compel you to stir,

I kiss your eyelids, I compel you, I order you to look at

mle, when your eyes open opposite mline vertigo takes

ml e, I speed the movement of the wires, I press them, I

push on them, I even dig them in places into your

muscles, you quiver, you stiffen, you do not cry out, mly

hands do their work all over your body, your mouth

The kaleidoscope game consists of inserting a handful of

uncovers your teeth, your neck tautens, your head falls

yellow blue pink mauve orange green violet flies beneath

back, you are seized with a slow soft movement, the

someone's eyelids, mline for instance. They are really

146

147

tiny flies minute insects, their peculiarity lies in the

I am in the cold stream at high noon. M/y gums are

bizarre intensity of their colours. You place them between

gashed, they are shall we say more or less sawn through

m/y eyelid and m/y eyeball despite m/y protestations

by the water, it makes a cut a precise incision right

and laughter. As soon as m/y lids meet hermetically

across mly mouth, m/y teeth are laid bare, I draw up I

above and below they begin to fidget. The mauve one

suck in the cold, mly whole face is racked with pain.

for instance progresses with extreme slowness, another

I crawl in the mud and the weed, there I reach you m/y

one yellow let's say begins to describe zigzags, another

serenest one, your whole body is icy quite flat gigantic

rotates on the spot, that one's orange, there's one that

distorted by the movement of the water. I stand before

systematically traverses the interior of the periphery of

you, m/y two hands grasp you round your waist, thus I

m/y eye, I see the violet one hurl itseH incessantly against

hold you beneath the surface, I see your eyes, I see your

the skin of m/y eyelid, a pink one gets caught up in a

cheeks, I see your mouth, I see your shoulders, I see your

welling tear. The same thing happens in the other eye.

arms your legs. Despite the dazzling sunlight the water

When you place your fingertips against m/y closed eyes

solidifies progressively on your body and around m/y

I see them. becoming frenzied, they spin round in every

legs, I agitate them incessantly to prevent excessive

direction which makes the colours change rapidly, I've

hardening. Around us the water is changing state as far

no time to pay attention to all their formations to all

as I can see. A thick layer of ice now extends above you,

their dispositions. When you press on m I y eyeballs even

beneath only a slight current moves, your horizontally

when you press very lightly a Brownian movement occurs

extended arms and legs are stirred from time to time.

between m/y eyes and m/y lids, but since the flies are

When the solidification of the water appears to mle

protected by the moistness of the ambient medium there

sufficiently advanced for you to be no longer able to

is no mishap, at a given moment the tingling of their

break free, I exert traction on the middle of your body,

multiple feet the suction of their thousands of micro

I thrust you against the bottom of the lake, so doing I

scopic suckers irritate m/y cornea, it's impossible for

raise m/yseH wrenching m/yseH from the ice, at a given

m/e to retain them any longer, you collect them m/y

moment I find m/yseH lying face downward just above

beloved on a sheet of glass where m/y tears fall.

you engaged in looking at you through the transparency,

the water stirred up by m/y movements overflows from

below on to the crust of ice where it is broken, here

where I am engaged in watching you it is thick enough,

yet I do not stir, I note that your movements are more

rapid than if they were excited solely by the now un-

149

doubtedly nonexistent current at the place you occupy,

of your cheeks, you allow ml e to incise the whole length

you become agitated however, you struggle, m I y eyes

of your arms inside and out, you allow m I e to sever your

applied to the surface of the ice see yours open on the

breasts whose blood spurts parallel to splash into m/y

other side, you look at ml e, you raise your hands, you

eyes, you allow m/e to make an opening all round your

push with all your might against the layer above you, 1

belly, you allow m/e to see your viscera all steaming

hear it crack while 1 let the water round m I e set and

yellow white green, the duodenum the small intestine the

freeze, 1 burden you with all m/y weight lying on you,

large intestine, now 1 hear their loud noises undisguised,

1 become numbed in m/y entire body but 1 remain here,

you allow m/e to touch your bladder, you allow m/e to

1 allow m/yself to become imprisoned so as to look at

flay both your #Ughs, your sex is intact, already 1 am

you to become increasingly immobile, you become rigid,

covered in your, blood, m/y face m/y hands m/y bust

you shine in the sun in the block of ice m/y best beloved,

m/y hair are all sticky. You barely slightly paler magniyou are borne by no current.

ficent very reg"" you laugh, you tell ml e that 1 am

impotent to ma1te you suffer.

When after the dawn the sun is blinding you are revealed

to m I e in all your glory skin made of scales in the

When you force m/e to open m/y mouth you disclose

dazzling light blood vaginal juice long congealed strands

m/y sawHke teeth. You say that you feel unafraid of this

on your belly dried spittle on your cheeks marbled skin

unprepossessing aspect of m/y person. You allow m/e to

covered with stains black eyes rimmed with black cheeks

draw you to ml e to slash greedily at your throat the

black, desire for you grips m/e incessantly when head

nape of your neck, you allow m/e to lay bare the muscles

rolling dragging your mass of hair you are caught by

150

the sun, m/y lips shoot, they become an elongated gutter,

the upper lip clings to the lower lip, they fuse, the length

of m/y single lip is soon such that it coils on itself forming a spiral crozier, it is a sucker a very narrow trunk, I apply it lightly to your throat your shoulders your nipples

THE MOUTH THE LIPS THE JAWS

your belly your vulva, you sigh in your sleep, m/y

flexible antennae palpate in your hair in your ears on

THE EARS THE RIDGES OF THE EYEyour eyelids, I suck up with m/y trunk all the fine

BROWS THE TEMPLES THE NOSE

particles which have accumulated on your skin, I absorb

THE CHEEKS THE CHIN THE FOREthe juices while I grasp you between mly six feet, the

HEAD THE EYELIDS THE COMfirst two surround your head, the others immobilize your

pelvis against which I thrust mly segmented abdomen,

PLEXION THE ANKLE THE THIGHS

some of your convulsions split mly chitinous skeleton.

THE HAMS THE CALVES THE HIPS

Through the facets of mly eyes I have no unitary vision

THE VULVA THE BACK THE CHEST

of your body, you are diversified, you are different, I

THE BREASTS THE SHOULDERsuddenly embody signals from your arms fragments of

your belly part of a shoulder one of your labia, I

BLADES THE BUTTOCKS THE

see you

everywhere at once, an intoxication grips mle, I appre

ELBOWS THE LEGS THE TOES THE

hend you in innumerable morsels, I lose m/yself in your

FEET THE HEELS THE LOINS THE

geography, mly trunk palpates you searchingly, clinging

NAPE THE THROAT THE HEAD THE

to you thus by mly six feet I begin mly delectable one

INSTEPS THE GROINS THE TONGUE

to flap mly wings against your back, a fine powder of a

dazzling blue spreads over your shoulders into your hair,

THE OCCIPUT THE SPINE THE

mly movement gains effect, I disengage you from the

FLANKS THE NAVEL THE PUBIS

ground, l lift you up, I tear you away, I carry you off

THE LESBIAN BODY.

flying sound asleep above the sea.

153

mly trenches in mly crevices, you mine mle, mly

surface caves in, step by step it affects mly entire body

mly muscles mly blood mly bones mly vital organs

mly substances until decomposition is complete. When

you stop mly darling, you will have spongy matter on

M/y cells enlarge beneath your fingers mly most

your hands and on your arms viscosities pitch putrescence

atrocious one. M/y skin is covered with ocelli red lightblood lymph bile you mly most intact.

brown plaques, the globules of the cell-nuclei enlarged

thousands of times provoke considerable perturbations,

they transgress the nuclear membranes, they roll around

in the cytoplasm of their cells, they emerge from it by

brute force, 1 see enormous quantities of shining nucleoli

leaping all around mle, some have dragged with them

the nuclei in which they were imprisoned, from mly skin

there emerge bodies comparable for the most part to

glass marbles others to taws, bubbles form continually at

the surface of mly body touched by your fingers, 1 see

them burst silently on mly arms in long orange green

spurts, mly skin is entirely covered with water, the

expelled cytoplasm flows, 1 stream, depressions wells are

dug, your fingers plunge therein precipitately abandoning them for others newly-formed, then eddies of air rush 1 see the sun shining between your ribs. The sky of an

in, a slight noise a hissing susurrations become perceptible,

intense blue is also visible in certain intervals of their

as the phenomenon accelerates and continues the sound

arrangement. M/y head is placed on the ground against

becomes a series of bellowings of whistlings ceasing

you resting at the level of your seventh right rib. At this

abruptly then beginning again, 1 am the site of a great

point the bulge of your thorax is already beginning to

hubbub, thus 1 become increasingly immobile while you

diminish following the descending scale of your ribs.

mly so ferocious one mly frenzied one you have an

Had 1 to come here thousands of times 1 should still run

incomparable speed, you come and go in mly widened

to the bend in the path from which 1 can see your

pores in mly alveoli in mly cavities in mly furrows in

skeleton all white lying on the hilltop. 1 can make out

154

155

the parallel disposition of your ribs from afar. As I

approach I can distinguish your skull your pelvis your

humeri your ulnae your radii your femora your tibiae.

You are lying on your shoulderblades and on your vertebrae, your iliac bones are prominent. I fling m I yself down beside you m/y best-beloved, I kiss the phalanges

A solitary moon is shining while I await you beneath

of your hands, I look sideways at you just as when we

the tall sorb-apple tree. The white flowers of the tree are

used to run a long while on the moors of the island and

brightly illuminated by its violet light. I have hidden

fling ourselves down all heated breathless you perfectly

m I yself to watch you arrive. The sea is rough, it is visible

still watching the sky, now your orbits are exposed nose

in the less dark places under the light of the moon there

indented, your small square teeth prolonged by their

where violet pools incessantly form and change. I cannot

bosses over your jawbones. The pink flowers of the

make out th� innumerable lights of the fisherwomen's

heather are visible in the spaces between your bones and

I

boats. Yet they must have left port as the colour of the

all around you. Once again I am seized with the desire

beacons indicates. You do not come. Some of the women

to take you in m I y arms to kiss your eyes your mouth

pass close to m/e without seeing m/e, they sing, they

your clavicles your sternum. Or else I hold you very

dance as they go, their voices rise and break off abruptly,

close m/y legs against your legs your arms around m/y

one of them plays a musical instrument, a flute held

neck, I stay still even when night is come when the chill

cross-wise I believe. They halt under the sorb-apple and

and the dew make m/e shiver when no warmth from

kiss each other on the mouth one after the other, then

you reaches ml e while I am in life while I wait for the

all together forming a single mouth wish each other a

cold to overcome mle so as to remain here with you mfy

happy night. A gust of wind causes numerous white

so adorable one in this cemetery in the open air m/y

mauve petals to fall on their hair and shoulders. They

bones mingled with yours.

repeat a phrase stressing the sound s, I vow by the tall

sorb-apple or something like that. The second moon

becomes visible in its tum. Its colour is orange. Very

rapidly it covers two-thirds of the path of the violet

moon. Their two spheres are identical in size. But one

moves more rapidly than the other. The colours they

emit do not blend. When they are next to one another

they are prolonged by two luminous cones one violet the

157

other orange, they are superimposed at the brief moment

when they intersect. You do not come. Unless you are

actually among them here engaged in singing and dancing. [ fling out both mly arms as quickly as [ can, [ grab someone whom [ drag across the gleaming masses of the

rhododendrons towards mle, [ look at her, [ touch her

Is there no Archimedea to be encountered anywhere that

bare skin, she looks at ml e laughing, it is not you mly

the baths are so perfumed with eau de Chypre ? [ never

best-beloved her hair is another colour red or perhaps

see you in the cool dark-blue pine-groves which flank

orange in the moonlight, her eyes are a stranger's, she

the island, shore, but there in the gloom mly eyes relax

takes mle by the neck and kisses mle, [ do not restrain

from the �aylight's dazzle the weight of mly arms mly

her departure. [ catch five of them in this way, one is

legs burdens mle no longer when [ rest them on the

fair her skin is white, the other three are dark their skin

pine needles, the mingled odours of the warm resin and

is black, one alone has the property of retaining the

the sea lead ml e to seek you lying beside ml e. But in

gleams of both moons. All the women make mocking

fact you are at the baths, it's there [ rejoin you, you are

gestures at ml e, one bites mly neck, another drools her

engaged in floating flat on the warm water, [ look at

saliva into one of mly ears, another feigning to depart

you, your body stands out against the orange and violet

leaps on mly back, her feet digging into mly loins she

mosaics, I anoint m/yself with oils and essences, [ swim,

makes of mle a giraffe to carry her, now [ hear them

[ press mly belly against your back, [ sing, I float the

singing about someone who confuses essence and appearnow empty perfume vases, I fin them with handfuls of ance. [ spit on the ground, [ fling out mly arms for the

last

water, they remain at the surface though half-full, then

time, it is you you cheat whom [ haul in at last

I add the water in smaller and smaller amounts, slowly

silent cold addressing ml e saying that [ have been kissed

they submerge all round you, they are full to the brim,

enough for the night, [ swear by the taIl sorb-apple that

they sink and yet they remain at the surface, a single

[ shan't be caught again.

drop would make them founder. [ begin the game all

over again several times. Suddenly emerging from your

torpor you empty them as fast as possible, you place

them on the surface of the water, you cause m I e to

observe that a body immersed in a liquid sustains a

vertical thrust directed from below upwards, that mly

dearest is manifest to anyone who spends three-quarters

159

of the day plunged in the water, but you insist, you say

But those who escape their pursuers are rare. Stones roots

that the thrust may be measured in tenns of the weight

make them stumble and slow them down. Or else the

of water displaced, you say' that you have discovered

unaccustomedness of moving so rapidly without looking.

therein a fundamental law of our pl)ysical universe, at

The place where you live is a sort of enlargement of the

these words I can no longer contain m/y laughter, I sink

gallery, semicircular, opening on the sea completely open

therefore, I emerge to thank the Blessed One the thrice

with a great circulation of wind of air of sound. It is there

august since you woman of little faith do not think of

that the pursued has cast herself down. She attempts to

so doing.

rise then to flee. You hold her against the paved floor. I

remain lying down. The sweat streams on m/y cheeks

on m/y back. The sea-breeze cools m/e. I ask her name,

but enraged lat having lost the race she refuses to answer.

I watch her� struggling in your arms, I hear her calling

for m/y help, I roll against her to try to grasp her arms

her shoulders or her legs. Finally she bursts out laughing,

her muscles relax, she asks for her bandage to be removed

so she may see where she is. You m/y incomparable one

She has let herself be caught in the race tackled by you

you kiss her cheeks and mouth. Night faIls. One can hear

losing. Now she stands between you and m/e eyes bandthe sea.

aged she is laughing. I touch her shoulders her breasts

her neck her hair. You hold her with her back against

you. At a given moment you lift her under the armpits

while I grasp her legs. She is borne thus towards the

square where the gallery of your dwelling opens. In the

gallery there are similar groups with bearers and borne.

From time to time a single bearer carries someone

stretched out between her arms. It is the day of the

pursuiL It is carried out by drawing lots. The eyes of

those who run are bandaged. They depart at the trum

Your arms of white-hot steel burn m/y arm, m/y most

pet's signal straight before them in the most open space

fiery one, the fingers of your hand make the flesh of mzy

of the island. They can run at full speed without risk.

fingers splutter, m/y nails shrivel, m/y skin flakes, faIls m

160

161

grey ash. Yet your contacts with mly body multiply, you

regard ml e your jet teeth clenched, your burning breath

reaches mly lips mly tongue mly palate, soon I am

gripped by thirst. Under your mouth mly ears shrivel,

mly breasts mly thighs mly buttocks mly back mly

vulva char. A thick malodorous smoke surrounds m/e.

There where the sun can melt the wings of wax you bear

The more I shrivel the more I shrink, the more you grow

ml e 0 radiant Felise in the wavering journey you underand develop, your shoulders are immense, your hair of take with some temerity. It did not suffice for you to

tin floats outspread, your arms and hands grow longer,

transfonn �/e into a flying-machine two pairs of wings

your head swells, you dominate ml e by your sheer size.

attached tom/y shoulders, and in fact I do fly, you have

M/y muscles begin to roast, the fire smoulders in places,

taken greatiPains to find the right viaticum to give mle

ravages in others, it is fanned by your feverish movestrength. That is why you have chosen to be on the ments, it attacks mly flesh everywhere, mly blood issuing

journey holding mle by the neck borne on mly arms.

all solidified at various breaches falls to the ground as

Thus you encourage mle with your words your kisses

clots of black red phosphorescent stone. You chew mle

your honeyed saliva in mly mouth to redouble mly

up, your lips of radiant tungsten perforate m I e, the long

efforts at intervals to distance m/yseif from the island.

muscles of mly forearms of mly thighs appear through

Despite everything I weaken, I do not know when this

the burst skin Under the influence of the intense comwill prove fatal. At noon maybe when mly breast ex

.

bustion certain vital organs mly liver lungs heart

posed mly skin burnt by the sun I am at the end of mly

abruptly petrify and begin to fall. M Iy hair coils in long

ability mly so black one to carry you in mly arms. Or

streamers on your thighs, your hands are filled with it,

else at the hour of the siesta when all the women are to

they set it ablaze and char it. M/y bones laid bare bebe seen recumbent in the shade-filled pine-groves while come incandescent then fall in powder. M/y clitoris

I struggle with you against the laws of gravity. 1 have

detached from its burning hood rolls glinting at your feet

begun to melt. You lick mle all over, all mly hairs stuck

ready to adorn one of your fingers in the setting of a ring.

to your teeth, you suck up mly boiling eyes, you squeeze

M/y eyes offered to you on a plate are, you say, delicious.

mly breast with one powerful arm while with the

M/y hair fallen in tufts sticks in your throat choking you,

other you hold mle against you in mly now slackeuing

I melt I disintegrate I am burnt up mly wretched

flight. But you cannot sustain ml e. Now instead of rising

mistress you devour ml e too precipitately.

I fall legs together. M/y arms release you. Not one of

those eagles with the menacing eyes comes to support

163

you. ] am the first to succumb, ] fall backwards mly

You hold a musical instrument in your hand, a guitar it

wings broken you following ml e closely headfirst the

seems to m/e. Your mouth utters modulations and stridwomen all very far-off down below standing watching encies. One of the women marks the rapid rhythm of the

the most irremediable fall of all, may the goddesses ensure

music by beating the skins of a tom-tom. You do not look

that ] that you will be able to hear their cries on reaching

at m/e. Your eyes are turned in the direction of the sea

the sea.

which prolongs the principal square of the island, it is

visible as a pastel blue between the snowy-flowering

cherry-trees specified in the architecture of their branches

and their inflorescences. A sudden gust of wind shakes

them causin� them to shed a great quantity of petals,

their slow fali continues between the now stationary trees.

At a given nioment the song of the group number seven

rises loud, so � known to all the women that it is taken

up in unison', over and over again. The circle yields, the

troupers of group number seven lend their balls to those

who wish to juggle. Capers are cut by the majority of

the assembly. All are to be seen head-over-heeIs between

the stalls the flowerbeds the fountains. Laughs shouts

collisions are heard. Someone begins a standing double

somersault. The smell of pralines mingled with that of

It is the women of group number seven who are the

flowers perceptible through the changes of the wind is

mountebanks. Their capers their gesticulations their juggvery strong. ] seek you mly radiant one across the throng.

ling their exclamations their songs their garments made

of a patchwork of bright colours produce an eddy in the

midst of the assembly. An increasingly large circle forms

around them. Each bears the number seven marked on

the front of her shoulders. You are one of them. Among

the spectators ] can like everyone else contemplate your

neck your slender nape the effect produced by the violet

inscription of the number seven on your translucent skin.

164

Document Outline

- the lesbian body part 1

- the lesbian body part 2

- the lesbian body part 3

Table of Contents

the lesbian body part 1

the lesbian body part 2

the lesbian body part 3