XI - XX Summary

XI: Neruda imagines himself as a puma prowling the streets, starved not for traditional food, but for Matilde's body, in a large, complicated conceit in which various body parts are made metaphors for things of earthly beauty.

XII: Love, here embodied specifically as sex, is a long journey. In this conceit, Matilde's body is a body of land, full of rivers and villages. There is something great and eternal at this end of this journey, and the author wonders what it is.

XIII: Matilde is made of bread, able to both act as sustenance for Neruda, and representative of bread-like characteristics, a certain earthiness, raised by fire, born of good harvest and stock.

XIV: Hair is the subject of Neruda's amor in this sonnet. He hasn't the time to fully contemplate the loveliness of Matilde's hair, and without this...