THE SICK MAN
The object doesn’t separate from its shadow anymore.
The body doesn’t get frightened by its shadow,
as if body and shadow are one (as if they had never
separated)
or as if there wasn’t a body nor a shadow (it isn’t
visible anyway)
in the great, calming and invincible shadow
from which they started hesitantly, groping with
innumerable fingers
the railings of the stairway, the keys, locks,
or the small protrusions of the wall stucco
or the finest hairs of the woollen cloth of
their coats or the stranger’s coat, and later,
groping their own or the other person’s
skin.
Knowledge was rising slowly from their own hands,
their own eyes, every time they stumbled upon
other people’s hands, every time they penetrated
deep into another person’s body, how slowly it was
gained from the lower floors, the storage rooms,
basements with the broken wooden horses, with
the three-legged beds, the three-legged chairs,
with the loose, hanging, tangled tree roots with
the big barrels and mythical storage jars, how
slowly they shifted from fear to fear, from
a calm shadow to the frightening, blinding, merciless
light, blind light, slowly, blindly, yet with pain and
impatience.
Libros Libertad 