when I next see you

I want to cover you with love when I next
see you, with caresses, with ecstasy. I want
to gorge you with all the joys of the flesh,
until you faint and die. I want you to be
astonished by me, to confess to yourself that
you had never even dreamed of such transports.
I am the one who has been
happy, now I want you to be the same.
When you are old, I want you to recall
those few hours. I want your dry bones
to quiver with joy when you think of them.

-Gustave Flaubert from a letter to Louise Colet dated August 15, 1846