Through the Window

A river.

Huge mountains, clouds strolling
shimmering green, gray and blue.

Cities, domes, windows grown old with
watching people go by.

Young eyes, young bodies on the
modern mats.

The Caribbean sea, the strong green
domes, poverties, solitudes.

In any square
two kids look at each other
beyond the heart
arms and groin.

In any room
one body is joined to another
to stay.

Clothes are undone, the slightest
signals are understood
without them knowing what they want
whether they are seeking for flesh or friendship
or the world’s loneliness.

Bodies where cleanliness doesn’t matter
nor are water or perfume needed.

The body asks always beyond the sense of smell
the painted face
the eyes ask more than any hand
the penis and the vagina know a language
that’s stronger, stricter, more demanding.

Ancestors
very distant relatives
floating on golden rafts
which are a dream bringing misfortune.

Knowing nothing
they built pain, defeat, fire
burning their feet.

Shapes of birds, birds’ beaks, skins
of birds
angry faces, wrinkled, showing their
invisible teeth.

Stars’ heads loaded with shiny beads
rings piercing breath, earrings
smaller than the wounded ear.

Where they were standing a boy is playing with his
dog.

They both watch, master and pet
a leather ball suspended in the blue air.

Or these women, dressed in the heritage of wool brought
from Rúan
holding their daughters’ hands, their babies on their hips and the
wind
ruffling their hair.

Poverties, beautiful faces, balconies, balconies,
street corners in memory.

You saw her
as the morning wore on.

The dirty bar, the hungry drunks.

That one phrase was enough, don’t go
and the body yielded to pleasure.

No soul nor morality nor conditions
we knew we were being watched
we were discovering the hips, the pleasant kiss
the delicious ear, the long legs leaving
unimpeded the place
where a body knows it’s caressed.

Our earth
tilled for nothing and for few
rivers and ports flooded with sunlight
wretched clothes wretched feet
rivers like daggers wounding the earth.

Smiling, thoughtful Yaunas, patient
diligent
building their houses weaving their poverty with
plant fibers
orchids, red date, water-lily leaves that
only you can see
nocturnal monkeys, ant-eaters, storks
tiger cats, boas,
thoughtful tortoises, capybaras – relatives from the
world of teeth –
Land that leaves nothing
and still sex.

At the unnecessary beginning you talk about yourself
the vein of language that won’t cease
the wretched navel but the life
pulse won’t  stop,
heart, acorn brain,
you talk about yourself,
since you are not.

Traslated from Spanish by Rowena Hill