THE CAT
Come, beautiful creature, sheathe your claws;
Rest on my amorous heart,
And let me plunge in your marvellous eyes,
Of mingled metal and agate.
When my fingers caress at leisure
Your supple, elastic back,
And my hand tingles with pleasure
From your body's electric contact,
I seem to see my mistress. Her regard,
Like yours, nice animal,
Deep and cold, cuts and thrusts like a sword,
And from her feet to her head's dark coronal,
A subtle air, a dangerous perfume,
Swim round her brown body's dusky bloom.
Charles Baudelaire
(translated by Doreen Bell)
Les Fleurs du Mal
Photographs by Imogen Cunningham
