Milan Vincetič

In a bathtub a whale of a man

Splashes foams and waves

To unanchor his fleet

Of plastic and shingle

And cruise to unspaces

Where he’s taken by good hope

And sinfully amorous ports

That stretch their piers

Between his overflowing sacs

In a train’s compartment a right-aged officer

Naps tousled

With a hand on his sabre

That accidentally comes loose

And swings and sways

All the way to the platform

Where it’s sweetly taken

And runs from the embrace

As its hat

Is blown under the wheels

It’s just about to

Sour the autumn

Streets and squares

And the loose fingers

Of an uptight chambermaid

That flatten the trombone

Of a pure-aged baron

And it’s now as it will be

And ancient by a century

Even if I don't

You are under my fingers

Under my tongue

And the soles of my feet

Even if we don't

I am under the hairpin

Under the rouge

In the folds

Which I sip

Drop by drop

At once

A fatso as well as a doctor

Coat under his arm

Swoops by a patisserie

With an air of Art Nouveau

Where a fledgling rascal

Closest to a loser

Churns a mealy pudding

Next to a wistful woman

Lying doubled over

You shake your curls

I stroke my bold pate

A blouse sticks to you

And the shirt to me

You step on your skirt

My zip bursts open

So that we float

You as if from mother

I after my father

In dual 

Multitude

A confirmation cross

Slides between breasts

And dusk jumps in

As if gotten stuck

Under a corset too tight

At the fold as it tingles

While a quiet pharmacist

Shakes his bottle

Fearful of spilling

medicine on the bush

It’s nigh well and good

That absences persist

That what’s below

Keeps on misbehaving

Making me

A birch rod or a tide

That scurries

From beneath your feet

And again the day is

Amusingly past  

The bustle of a handsome day

With its Saturday’s promenade

A chatty fountain in the square

Approaches every lady

Except the one who’s walking

a whimsical neckline

That suits her figure

Like a glove

And takes its own arm

When she’s not there   

You’re almost and barely to me

Whether round the waist

Whether below the stirrups

As we did years ago

You in a faraway land

I in a rustling suit

Under which you should reach

And quibble my skin

So that after the night

We’ll be up for a fight

A middle-aged temptress

In padded pantyhose

Storms homeward

To chakra her husband

On how to fold a lotus

As she distracts herself with a flower

Mollifying and melliferous

Lying below in slumber deep

Waiting for her soul’s bliss

Another handsome manor

And a conceited sun

Above a tousled plane-tree

That contemplates a pool

With a spread-out towel

On which half-asleep

She naughtily plays

Caressing herself and impressing herself

With a TV-endorsed Spanish fly

And the pizzaiolo whirls

The evasive dough

Folding it over and under

Like petticoats

Of a grandmother who’d concealed

Inside them a scurrier with a drum

Who mischievously feels them

Dropping and lifting them

Until he finally gets it

Every time you are

A little big present

A bombon unwinding

An apple carried by a hedgehog

Or a letter that replies

Always and individually

So that the leap days

Are withdrawn

Which don't have your complexion

Nor the hips of your breasts

Awaited

And the day makes up

With the holiday emptiness

So that the chimney sweep turns

Into a shifted tavern

Slapping the bottom

Of a lovely milkmaid

Claiming it’s his lot

To glide bottom-up

On her slide

I cannot disentangle my eyes

From your

Hair that blows in the wind

And your hands which remain silent

To mine

And also

That I am waking

Without falling asleep

From your eyes

Which I cannot

Disentangle from mine

Still with her cony hips

And him with a collar

That unfastens itself

By the trefoil glebe

Into which they wade

Stormy ‘til the evening

When they lie

Weary with dreams

And grab each other all over

Stuck together immaculate

I cannot close my eyes

In your

Hair which remains

In the hands that hurry from mine

And further

So that I could fall asleep

Without waking in your eyes

Which I cannot push away

Both

The frost is barely past

With a dallying hazel

While a chunky samovar

Sullens us not wakes us

With a muzhik who again

Leans his axe from behind the door

Who rarely threatens

In the Petersburg winter

While the snow

Has gotten used to go

Even if oranges

Tattled to the mom-to-be

That they’re being chased

Head over heels across a stained zebra

By a pooch

That got away

From the hamlet candlemaker

Again day would come

Wound up as anything

The moon that you drained

Into the teapot

Had the colour

Of your neck

The wax of your skin

And the varnish of your nails

Which easily

And regardless

Hid me under the pit

on your tongue