“Fever your sex is a crab”

Fever your sex is a crab
Fever the cats feed on your green nipples
Fever the quick movement of your lower back
The eagerness of your cannibalistic tissues
The grip of your tubes that quiver and cry out
Tear my leather fingers
Snatch at my pistons
Fever dead sponge bloated with softness
My mouth runs along your horizon
A traveler unafraid on a frenzied sea

Translated from the French

Notes: Read the French-language original, “Fièvre ton sexe est un crabe.”

This poem is part of “When Can I See You Again: The Poetry of Joyce Mansour,” translated by Emilie Moorhouse. You can read the rest of the portfolio in the June 2023 issue. All the English translations of Joyce Mansour’s poems are from Emerald Wounds: Selected Poems, edited by Emilie Moorhouse and Garrett Caples. Translations copyright © 2023 by Emilie Moorhouse. Reprinted with the permission of City Lights Books. For more information, visit www.citylights.com.