1. She came out to you with her dress inside out
And her heart was beating wildly for you

2. As if she were in the house when she saw you
A frightened gazelle tangled in branches

3. She smiled and came to you when she smiled
With a string of unpierced pearls

4. The morning caller bid you farewell, so you were delighted
A soul calling to the misguidance of perdition

5. I thought you were as in days of love
When the branch of youth was fresh

6. And I knew what was in her soul, so I squeezed it
And there fell from it scented buds

7. I grasped that thing with the grasp of warriors
And there flowed to me your pressed juice

8. With my left hand, and the left hand has a subtlety
That no other has, and the poet is clever

9. So from it, when I touched it, my palm was wet
With dew like rosewater when it flows

10. And my soul melted from the pleasure of its dripping
Until I feared for my heart it would melt

11. But the damned thing recoiled from it, and maybe
I called it good, but it would not respond

12. And it refused, truly refusing as if
It were a jinn led to perdition, troubled

13. And its sides shook as if
It were an old wineskin worn through with holes

14. Until when the light of dawn shone, a torch
And the vanishing of darkness drew near

15. I asked her shyly, "Don't you need anything
From me?" She said mockingly, "Get lost!"

16. She said, "Damn your mother! When you want to bid her farewell
There's a horn, with cracks and holes in it!"