183 You tempt me to diminish myself and make you a temple -- Think for weeks what helplessness means, no -- mendicancy, despair On the pilgrimage to your lips. You tame me locked in the cage. I learn from you: I'm ignorant -- reading you as a textbook. You train me to perform on the stage set up by your vision -- With the strict obedience of a puppet live in your hands. You entice me, stricken, to see a concubine as a saint -- And turn this city into your bedroom lit by my nimbus.







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IRENE CÆSAR
Confined Verse
Collected Poems

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