DELMIRA AGUSTINI
"The Vampire"

In the bosom of the sad evening

I called upon your sorrow… Feeling it was

Feeling your heart as well. You were pale

Even your voice, your waxen eyelids,

Lowered… and remained silent… You seemed

To hear death passing by… I who had opened

Your wound bit on it—did you feel me?—

As into the gold of a honeycomb I bit!

I squeezed even more treacherously, sweetly

Your heart mortally wounded,

By the cruel dagger, rare and exquisite,

Of a nameless illness, until making it bleed in sobs!

And the thousand mouths of my damned thirst

I offered to that open fountain in your suffering. 

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  

Why was I your vampire of bitterness?

Am I a flower or a breed of an obscure species

That devours sores and gulps tears?

Translated by Alejandro Cáceras