You let down your hair, and the history falls across
your shoulders, your back, your breast. Again, I am
a young lover having to persuade you that
his embraces are the sweetest, that his desire
is the strongest. You have not reached forty yet, but
you already consider cutting them off, to show
the world you are not available anymore. I sink
my face into them and breathe in the smell of the sea,
of the countries overseas. I do not want to own you,
yet I cannot but be jealous as you comb your hair
on the shore, of the men passing by
coming to a standstill. I know you are not your hair
and you can, in an instant, turn from a nymph
into a Medusa, before whom I petrify and seek
an apology for my behavior. But not now. I am
traveling across your hair as if across a carpet woven
from silk—I am old enough to know what awaits me
at the end of the journey, yet when I am finally there,
I will be there for the first time.
Translated by Andrej Peric