Gwyneth Lewis
Strip-Tease
After shutting the door on the rest of the party
and locking it—with the coats empty people
on the grave of the no-man's-land of the bed
and the howling of their owners still to be heard—
the cowboy turned to her: "Now, sweet thing,
let's see how much you can really undress."
She undid the buttons of her breasts
and tossed the sovereigns noisily to the night;
she slipped out of the stays of her ribs
and peeled off her skin like a shirt of smoke
that faded away in the sun of her heart—
in nakedness it becomes a visible planet.
He followed the burning course of her setting
to her legs' forest, where he became lost
forever in the flurry of her spirit.
But not before turning back from the abyss
to see the room where she'd been a girl
and the coats all praising her, raised into a choir!
Welsh; trans. Joseph P. Clancy
Gwyneth Lewis, Welsh, trans. Joseph P. Clancy.