Sonata

by Pablo Neruda

Neither the heart cut by a piece of glass

in a wasteland of thorns

nor the atrocious waters seen in the corners

of certain houses, waters like eyelids and eyes

can capture your waist in my hands

when my heart lifts its oaks

towards your unbreakable thread of snow.

Nocturnal sugar, spirit

of the crowns,

ransomed

human blood, your kisses

send into exile

and a stroke of water, with remnants of the sea,

neats on the silences that wait for you

surrounding the worn chairs, wearing out doors.

Nights with bright spindles,

divided, material, nothing

but voice, nothing but

naked every day.

Over your breasts of motionless current,

over your legs of firmness and water,

over the permanence and the pride

of your naked hair

I want to be, my love, now that the tears are

thrown

into the raucous baskets where they accumulate,

I want to be, my love, alone with a syllable

of mangled silver, alone with a tip

of your breast of snow.