Come With Me, I Said, And No One Knew (VII)

Portrait of Pablo Neruda
Pablo Neruda 1904–1973

Come with me, I said, and no one knew where, or how my pain throbbed, no carnations or barcaroles for me, only a wound that love had opened.

I said it again: Come with me, as if I were dying, and no one saw the moon that bled in my mouth or the blood that rose into the silence. O Love, now we can forget the star that has such thorns!

That is why when I heard your voice repeat Come with me, it was as if you had let loose the grief, the love, the fury of a cork-trapped wine

the geysers flooding from deep in its vault: in my mouth I felt the taste of fire again, of blood and carnations, of rock and scald.

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