I was browsing through some poetry by Pablo Neruda, when bizarrely, the vampire Lestat came to mind. It must have been 15 years since I last read Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles. Reminiscing about a fictional undead creature was probably the farthest thing that Neruda wanted to evoke from his readers when he wrote this love poem with so much fervor.
Anhelo Su Boca, Su Voz, Su Pelo
by Pablo Neruda
I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent, starving I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disquiets me,
I search the liquid sound of your steps all day.
I hunger for your sleek laugh,
For your hands the color of the wild grain,
I hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.
I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your loveliness,
The nose, sovereign of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes, And I walk hungry, smelling the twilight
Looking for you, for your hot heart,
Like a puma in the barren wilderness.
