I. Maracujá
​
Maracujá, kiss me back. 
Use your lips as I do mine. 
Your soul is the fruit of passions.
My sin shares your likeness.
 
Planted in the neurosis of my conscience,
You shall be harvested by my soul.
You shall be filtered through the rains of my heart, 
And you shall let yourself satisfy.
 
Maracujá, my nutritious sin,
Your low-hanging fruits of passion tempt me.
Your low-hanging fruits of passion tease me. 
 
Maracujá, my passion fruit,
Sip from me every seed of my own 
So that I may pass my sweetness on to you.
 
O Maracujá, are you a blighted fruit?
Do you dare not kiss me back?
Though you are sour, still I think you hold only beauty, 
But I will drip you from my lips,
One seed by one seed away,
Before a sour kiss turns sweet.
 
Maracujá, my passion fruit,
I leave you to your own succession. 
If you return to me, I shall know you have been sweetened. 
And when you are sweetened, I shall know that you are mine.
When you are sweetened, I will know that you have always been mine. 
 
Then, when the flowers and fruits of the world cease to grow,
Kiss me back, Maracujá. 
For at my lips you shall encounter just how much goodness you hold.
You shall encounter just how much goodness you have always held. 
 
Maracujá, my passion fruit.
​
Rio de Janeiro, 2023

 
II. From Figs to Flesh 
 
O he from Cyprus sea-foam born,
Of olive tone and fig-ripe kiss,
From leaf and bough a fruit has torn
To nourish he who can't dismiss. 
 
Whose roots and sinew deeply vein 
A concrete heart as mine has grown. 
As knotted fig vines (leaf and chain),
Has he to me been tightly sewn. 
 
What figgish fags are we to play
At naughty games of dripping tears.
Our drops of Aphrodite’s spray
Seem sweetest now despite our fears.
 
Return this kiss that’s kept afar 
By kissing back the seeds of mine.
From figs consumed you bear the scar
Of love's delight and dread divine. 
​
Antigua, Guatemala, 2024