To Mount Aetna

Aetna - I've been up Vesuvius ...
Vesuvius has shrunk, it seems:
There was more heat in me than streams
From that wounded crater in hot pus ...

-They say you're like a woman. -What?
-Your age, I suppose--? or maybe that cooked
Pebble, your heart? ... Well, it's a thought ...
Laugh? I thought I'd come apart!

-That dirty grin of yours, that cough
Thick as the phlegm of a senile lust.
Your old breast cancer draining off
Lava from under its scabby crust.

Comrade, let's go to bed together,
My hide against your sick hide; yes,
I swear by Venus you're my brother,
Vulcan!...
A little more ... or less ...