Today's Reading: On the Stairs - C.P. Cavafy

As I was going down those infamous stairs
you were coming through the door, and for a second
I saw your unfamiliar face and you saw me.
Then I hid so you wouldn't see me again,
and you hurried past me, hiding your face,
and slipped inside the infamous house
where you couldn't have found pleasure any more than I did.

And yet the love you were looking for, I had to give you;
the love I was looking for - so your tired, suspect eyes implied -
you had to give me.
Our bodies sensed and sought each other;
our blood and skin understood.

But we both hid ourselves, flustered.