LONG LISTED FOR THE 2023 GRIFFIN POETRY AWARDS
VIOLIN FOR THE ONE-ARM MAN
4
Therefore I sit and contemplate: what man has that is
truly his
since my life assumes its importance when I narrate it
to someone like daylight that is important to the blind
who, at least, need to be seen
thus I sleep in peace knowing that someone else risks
on my behalf,
the one they know, only that each morning, just not
to betray myself,
I have to gather the broken pieces of the nightmare
and uncle Elias,
very old, powdered with talc, since he lived humbly,
returned each Christmas and spent his evenings
making birds, not real ones, just to make sure they
wouldn’t lift up the house again;
in fact, one night I retried and I swore with such
empathy that the few cloths I had placed in the room
almost dried up, yet
just that, and the bed, Judas the Iscariot, betrays me
to them every morning
I therefore preferred to walk aimlessly, a truly delight
to my kind of people,
and then I truly found myself close to my life, like
the very sick who love the next fellow and who
stand absentmindedly under the trees or wear old
pajamas or die fast like honeymoons
and Mr. Such and Such was very joyous when he made
money though that didn’t stop him from slapping
me two or three times a day
so that my poor mother’s milk went bad and we had
to exhume her so other seasons wouldn’t be in danger;
besides how can I learn new tricks at my age? In fact
I’d like to stop here for a moment as it happens in old
transcribed glorious documents or like the drunkard
who stands in front of the icons for a while before he
goes to spend the funeral money on drinks and
then the expulsions from parish to parish, short affairs
with the handrails, mysterious way of wearing
the same hat all the time
and this woman at the end of the road, so forgotten
that her steps are heard from inside all the fairy tales;
then there is always a sorrow for ourselves in all
our illusions
like our true residence that lasts as long as a song.
Libros Libertad 