F.K. Comes to New York

On arrival you would open the door
to an unknown world.

Brooklyn of old red houses
Jews with bonnets, locks and grease
buildings on fire and blacks from the Western Islands.

You arrived there, dear F.K.
but you didn’t stay.

You chose a better place
where nothing is a lie and nothing is true.

It was the best place in the world
till that morning when your mother
who had died in Prague
arrived with her sister and daughter.

F.K., nothing changes
if, as they used to say
you don’t keep your mouth shut
while you open the door.

Traslated from Spanish by Rowena Hill