Body, remember not only how much you were loved,
not only the beds you lay on,
but also those desires that glowed openly
in the eyes that looked at you,
trembled for you in the voices--
only some chance obstacle frustrated them.
Now that it's finally in the past,
it seems almost as if you gave yourself
to those desires too--how they glowed,
remember, in the eyes that looked at you,
remember, body, how they trembled for you
in those voices.
- Constantine P. Cavafy (1863-1933)
translated by Edmund Keeley & Philip Sherrard
