Your hair, like hanging gardens of the queen
Of Babylon, swing down, and in them seen
Are ivy, cherry blossom, orchid, rose
Blooming together in resplendor. Those

Blue eyes, in which we see Monet, Renoir -
The beauty fathomed specially from afar,
That are more haunting, beautiful and true
The greater distance between me and you;

A nose that like a liner in the seas
Engulfs the essence of the ocean breeze -
That stays aloft in turmoil and in flood
And sends the chastened air through the blood -

The lips that like the opening to a cave
Conceal a warm and delicate enclave
In which the sparkling teeth and gentle tongue
Lead food inside and air into the lung;

A neck that like a Doric column stands
Majestic, long and white; the lily hands
That craft calligraphy and highest art
Sustained by rushing turbines of your heart;

A chest with double Taj Mahals adorned
That puts all human craftsmanship to scorn;
The voice, like a piano or a flute
Resounds through many octaves or stops mute,

The strands of spirit that are entertwined
In the refining furnace of your mind
That fills itself with majesty and love
And forges them into a treasure trove:

The legs like those of cheetah or gazelle
Are elegant and long and run like hell;
The stomach that like delta river's sand
Is smooth and soft and tender to the hand;

And terraced hills and paddies of your ears,
And morning dewdrops of your gentle tears,
And the Saharah Desert of your back,
And the Forbidden Palace in its track:

In you the world is manifest, in you
Is sun and sky and every worldly hue,
The flowers, stars and sculptures and the word
Of masters and the dreamers and the Lord.

I love you all; and, feeling with my heart
Your whole entity and every part,
I turn off reason and, delirious, fall
Into the Sistine Chapel of your soul.

Ilya Shambat