THE DEAD HOUSE
That last day the servant girls screamed and left
a shrill scream that got nailed in the dark hallway
like a big fishbone in the throat of an unknown
visitor or like a rusted sword in a long coffin
of the killed man, one scream, only this much
and they left running with their faces covered by
their hands: only when they reached the end of
the marble stairway, behind the colonnade,
they looked small, black, stooped, conniving,
spiteful, with premeditated willingness, they
stopped for a moment, totally estranged from
their scream, they uncovered their faces, looked
carefully at the stairway so that they wouldn’t fall.
Although their feet knew the stairs step by step
and they knew all its length, all its pauses, like
a poem written on the back side of the calendar
or like a song the soldiers sing after a battle
a song they learned from the few soldiers who
were once returning from the front lines.
Libros Libertad 