I’m not dying of love: I’m dying of you
I’m not dying of love: I’m dying of you,
my love—dying of the love of you,
of my dire need for my skin of you,
of my soul and my mouth of you,
of the miserable wretch I am without you.
I’m dying of you and me, of both
of us, of this—
ripped to shreds, torn apart,
the two of us are dying, dying of it.
We’re dying in my room where I’m alone,
on my bed where you’re missing,
in the streets where my arm goes unaccompanied,
at the movies and in parks, on trams,
in places where your head rested on my shoulder,
and my hand held yours,
and all of you I know like myself.
We die in places lent to air
so that you can be away from me,
and go to airless enclaves where
I cover you with my skin
and we come to know each other in ourselves,
unworlded, joy-saturated, without end.
We’re dying, this we know, ignore, we are dying
together, now, sundered
each from the other, daily,
moulded into multiple statues,
in gestures we don’t see,
in our hands that need us.
We’re dying, love, I’m dying in your womb
that I neither nibble nor kiss,
in your sweet and living thighs,
and in your unending flesh, I’m dying of masks,
and of dark and incessant triangles.
I’m dying of your body and of mine,
of our death, love, I, we, are dying.
In love’s pit at all hours,
inconsolable, in sobs and screams
inside me, I mean to say, I call you,
those who are being born, who are coming from
behind, from you, those who reach you, are calling you.
We are dying, love, and, hour by hour,
we do nothing but die a little more,
and write and talk to each and die together.
Translated by Colin Carberry
Diario semanario y poemas en prosa (1961)
#EscritoresMexicanos #PoemasSueltos (1951-1961)
Liked or faved by...
.jpeg)
