ROMIOSINI
This way the army went with banners glued onto
their flesh
with stubbornness bitten by their teeth like
an unripe wild pear
with the moon-sand under their heavy boots
and with the coal dust of night glued in their
nostrils and their ears
Tree by tree stone by stone they passed the world
with thorns as pillows they spent their sleep
They carried life like a river in their parched hands
With every step they won a yard of sky – to
give it away
On watch they turned to stone like the
conflagrated trees
and when they danced in the plaza ceilings
shook inside the houses
and the glassware clinked on the shelves
Ah what songs shook the mountain peaks –
as they held between their legs the earthen dish of the moon
and had their dinner
and broke the sigh amid their heart pleats
like they would break a louse with their
thick nails
Who will now bring you the warm loaf of bread so that
you may feed dreams in the night?
Who will stand in the olive tree’s shade
company to cicada so that it won’t go silent
now that the noon whitewash paints all around the horizon
a stone wall
erasing their great manly names?
Libros Libertad 