The bustle of the Quarter is white noise
and barely heard beyond our cotton drapes;
the lazy putes, the lolling Cajun boys,
the knives, the horns, the skin-of-teeth escapes,
the razzmatazz – it’s on another sphere,
a sweet dimension carved from elements
beyond our ken. But we are lying here –
what alien spell makes me a malcontent?
Some months ago we matched our female flow,
all rhythms are now ours, once yours and mine;
and now, at last we breathe as one, and slow
our heartbeats, each the other to define.
A bitterness, like coffee, in your hair…
Enfin, tais-toi, et fais do-do ma chčre.
Adding your comment:
When women live together (and this even pertains in, say, the dormitory of a girls' boarding school), our menstrual cycles tend to coincide after a while. In this poem, that fact (the reason I say "moons" for "months") is a metaphor for the synchronising of all the rhythms in two companions' lives.
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