Ossuaries, Dionne Brand

“As if you were on fire from within. The moon lives in the lining of your skin.”

– Pablo Neruda

The Queen

by Pablo Neruda tr. Donald D. Walsh

I have named you queen. There are taller than you, taller. There are purer than you, purer. There are lovelier than you, lovelier.

But you are the queen.

When you go through the streets No one recognizes you. No one sees your crystal crown, no one looks At the carpet of red gold That you tread as you pass, The nonexistent carpet.

And when you appear All the rivers sound In my body, bells Shake the sky, And a hymn fills the world.

Only you and I, Only you and I, my love, Listen to it.

Details, suicide of Lucretia by various artists, (1), (2), (3)

in front of my mother and my sisters, i pretend love is cheap and vulgar. i act like it's a sin — i pretend that love is for women on a dark path. but at night i dream of a love so heavy it makes my spine throb — i dream up a lover who makes love like he is separating salt from water.

— "salt", salma deera

Henri Gervex, Rolla (detail), 1878.

Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux.

— Ray Bradbury, from “Fahrenheit 451.”

Ama Codjoe, from Bluest Nude: Poems; “Bluest Nude”

[Text ID: “I crave. I want to be seen clearly or not at all.”]

Circe by John Collier (1885)

The people I love are the workers of my heart. They rebuild a heart they did not break from a house of ashes to a skyscraper ruling over the whole world.

- The Short Poem Series by Royla Paula Rădița Asghar

things from sappho to call your girlfriend

ἀστέρων πάντων ὀ κάλλιστος (of all the stars, the fairest)

πόλυ πάκτιδος ἀδυμελεστέρα, χρύσω χρυσοτέρα (far sweeter-sounding than the lyre, far more golden than gold)

τὰν ἰόκολπον (violet-tressed, one with violets in her lap)

ὦ κάλα, ὦ χαρίεσσα κόρα (o beautiful, graceful girl)

ἦρος ἄγγελος ἰμερόφωνος ἀήδων (nightingale, sweet-voiced messenger of spring)