As on all its sides a kitchen-match darts white
flickering tongues before it bursts into flame:
with the audience around her, quickened, hot,
her dance begins to flicker in the dark room.
And all at once it is completely fire.
One upward glance and she ignites her hair
and, whirling faster and faster, fans her dress
into passionate flames, till it becomes a furnace
from which, like startled rattlesnakes, the long
naked arms uncoil, aroused and clicking.
And then: as if the fire were too tight
around her body, she takes and flings it out
haughtily, with an imperious gesture,
and watches: it lies raging on the floor,
still blazing up, and the flames refuse to die -
Till, moving with total confidence and a sweet
exultant smile, she looks up finally
and stamps it out with powerful small feet.
(Translated by Stephen Mitchell)
The Spanish Dancer
As in the hand a sulfur match, white,
before it comes ablaze, on all sides
stretches out flickering tongues, so, in the circle
of nearby watchers, hasty, bright, and hot,
her round dance starts to flicker and spread out.
And suddenly it is utterly and completely in flames.
With one glance she ignites her hair
and all at once with daring art whirls
her whole dress into this conflagration,
from which, like frightened snakes,
her naked arms stretch, roused up and rattling.
And then, as if the fire were becoming low,
she draws all of it together and throws it away
very imperiously, with a haughty gesture,
and looks at it: it lies there on the ground, raging,
