by Brett Rutherford
after Li Yü, Poem 10
She was ready, but I could hardly wait.
I burst into her chamber, just as the last
of her preparations for love were underway.
I caught her fanning the censer
so that more sandalwood would blow
my way. She laughed, and that lilac-bud
of a little tongue circled her cherry lips
and moistened them. Before I could
turn to embrace her, one arm took up
the lute, and in her lap it went, a guard
against my haste. She tuned, oh, quickly!
to pretend to tune when she had tuned
before! and this to cool my ardor.
Forth the clean song issued –
ah, swan and peony, dove and cherry! —
I knelt to listen, and to aim
my upward-looking eyes into hers,
turned down to frets and fingering
(small darts of desire I thought I saw,
not just in melody,
but in the slight tremble she added
to every falling note.) A scent,
she must have meant to madden me,
rose and then faded from sleeves of gauze.
Why trick me with chemistry
when you have already conquered China?
And so we drank, and soon her cup
was tinged with wine, and fringed
with the hue of abducted cherry.
At last, the pi-pa put aside, the song
having reached its triple ending,
she lay there stretched, all limbs in view
upon the silk embroidered bed.
Oh, what is modesty, when thunder strikes
and blinds the eyes, unbearable!
When my sight cleared, and what I saw
I saw again, she parted her lips, and
from her mouth a cascade of red petals,
blew up and out. I nearly fainted.
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