12th of November
We carried rocks in the afternoon. Fast work
from one hand to another. The winter sun, barbwire,
water pitchers, the whistle of the guard.
The day ends here. It gets cold in the night.
We go inside early to eat our bread.
Good work, comrades, easy work
from one hand to another. Not everything is as easy.
Other things don’t go from one hand to another.
You see it even when the face doesn’t change
much. You see it in the furrow between
the eyebrows and from the mouth that opened but
said no words; you see it in the silence before supper
and in the two fingers that pull up the wick
of the lamp.
After we finish supper we leave the plates
unwashed; rats climb up to the table;
the moon leans its chin on the iron bars.
Everything stops like the watch of the killed
man. The hand ready to greet stays on the knee.
The scissors that cuts the toe nails stops; the nail
is too thick. You can’t even get angry.
The heat is postponed and the voice; silence too.
Only the lighting of a cigarette at midnight puts
an unsuitable full-stop in all the unfinished things.
Libros Libertad 