Sonnet XLII (Neruda)

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by Pablo Neruda

I hunt for a sign of you in all the others,
in the rapid undulant river of women,
braids, shyly sinking eyes,
light step that slices, sailing through the foam.

Suddenly I think I can make out your nails--
oblong, quick, nieces of a cherry--:
then it's your hair that passes by, and I think
I see your image, a bonfire, burning in the water.

I searched, but no one else had your rhythms,
your light, the shady day you brought from the forest;
nobody had your tiny ears.

You are whole--exact--and everything you are is one,
and so I go along, with you I float along, loving
a wide Mississippi toward a feminine sea.


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