"I want to eat your skin like a whole almond."
vs.
"I want to eat your skin like the wrinkled dark brown tissue of an almond"
I beg to disagree, nihil! You have changed the subject from Neruda's to your own. He is not at all comparing his lover's skin to an almond's wrinkled dark brown skin, as you are. The subject of the poem is an impulse of his, an impulse he evokes with an image. With this image, he visualizes simultaneously his desire, (a desire fixated at this instant on his lover's skin,) and a particular fulfillment of that desire -- he would like to take his lover, who is contained in the envelope of her skin in the way the flesh of an almond is contained in its skin, into him whole, feel and taste the physicality of her-- condensed to the sensual size and perfect, suggestive shape and delicate solidity of a whole almond.
Do you see what I mean, that it is not a rhapsody about skin? It is about an emotion; it is an attempt to convey a feeling of wanting to incorporate the beloved. He wants to eat her skin "like a whole almond." You have him wanting only the tissue, or wrinkled skin, of the thing. You neglected the, er, nut of the poem, imho! |
