A Bum
Tonight, again,
I went by him
And I heard him say
He has nothing on which to lie
But the hard, cold ground.
He talked about himself in the third person,
A prolongued psalmody of griefs,
That human wretch
With swollen legs,
Who sleeps in the street
Near my house.
And some nights
He also paints a sexy woman
In erotic scenes by the sea,
Born, like Venus, from the foam.
They were sweet love ballads
Sung by an indian mummy
Under a sign that said:
HEALTH CARDS
In big, red letters,
While like a scalpel
The wind from the moors
Cut into his body
And deepened the wound of memory.
That night I wished I could dream his dreams
in that moment, again,
but in another bed, in another time.
by Nicolás Suescún
translation by author
from Poetry International