BPR 44 | 2017
This Mirror Understands Me
I will arrive at night,
after the bolts have been shot,
after the parties and prayers.
I know the streets well,
I remember them,
with their scent of summer
and peacefulness.
I have not been able to keep
my rendezvous with the ceiba
and now I feel this solitude
in my knees
and it buckles them.
From my door I see
processions of shadows,
and voices are echoes,
and the wind is an obtuse
profile on the street corners.
I will go back to my city
where the simple faces of the houses
invite us to come in.
This mirror understands me.
I am going to look for my image
in things over there.
From Aquarius (1955)
Translated by Margaret Sayers Peden
Reprinted with permission from Northwestern University Press.