Each poem a bird fleeing
the place marked out by the plague.
Each poem a garment of death
through flooded streets and squares,
drenched in the lethal wax of the defeated.

Each poem a step toward death,
a counterfeit coin of deliverance,
a shot at a target in the middle of the night,
piercing the bridges above the river,
whose sleeping waters travel
from the old city toward the fields
where the day prepares its pyres.

Each poem a lifeless touch
of the one lying upon the slab in the clinics,
a ravenous hook that drags through
the soft silt of the graves.

Each poem a slow shipwreck of desire,
a creaking of masts and rigging
that bear the weight of life.

Each poem a crash of canvas collapsing
over the frozen roar of the waters,
the white rigging of the sails.

Each poem invading and tearing apart
the bitter web of boredom.

Each poem is born from a blind sentinel
who cries out into the deep hollow of the night
the password of his misfortune.

Water of dreams, fountain of ash,
porous stone of the slaughterhouses,
wood in the shadow of the everlasting flowers,
metal that tolls for the condemned,
funeral oil, double-edged,
the poet’s daily shroud,
each poem scatters over the world
the bitter grain of agony.