From "One Hundred Quatrains"
by Patrizia Valduga

8

By now you know: I need the words.
You'll learn to give me what I seek.
It's my sick mind, it feeds on words.
I'm begging you, for God's sake: speak!

17

Hurry, pin my wrists in place,
nail me to your bed like Christ . . .
comfort me, caress my face . . .
fuck me when I expect it least.

45

From nerves veins valves ventricles
from tendons cartilage nerves ducts
from follicles nerves ribs clavicles . . .
from every pore my soul erupts.

47

You liked that? you actually came?
but how? Explain to me. But why?
If you got off on that, you're doomed.
A charge I can't and don't deny.

71

Why is even pleasure a kind of chore?
Why is what sense I have left leaving me?
Come on, explain. Who do you take me for,
your personal doctor of philosophy?
Translated by Translated by Geoffrey Brock

From Volume 191, Number 3, December 2007

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