SHE HAS A BODY
Translated from "Lettres á l'Amazone"
SONNETS IN PROSE
I
She has a body. I had not yet beheld it. Still I had seen her hair, her eyes, her eyes above all; I had touched her hands; I did not assemble all that into a living union. I discovered her only yesterday: she has a body.
My deductions are certain. On watching her voice come out of her mouth and vibrate her lips, I am forced to this conclusion. As she raised her head, I saw the origin of the vibrations to be in her throat,
Which swelled or sank lightly at their passage. And I saw that her neck was extended and asserted by larger and more sensible movements;
The chest surely rests above the belly and thus down to the feet which are the breasts. There is no longer any doubt in my mind. She has a body, complete, essential.
II
Then I resolved to return to the beginning, for I know that a body has a top, a bottom, a middle, dimensions, extension in space. But what is the beginning of a body? The top, bottom, right, left,
Or the middle? The middle of a body is always important. The center is never metaphysics. It is to the center that equilibrium works and from the center that radiations set out. But if the middle is not the center, nor the limit,
Nor the genesis? If the body is engendered by one of the upper parts or by one of the lateral parts? The symmetry of living and organized bodies
Is full of surprises. I reflect. What if I constructed first a whole, by a bold pencil-stroke, as have sometimes the masters?
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