XXIX

To imagine the possible places you are,
to see you arrive nightless to La Tertulia,
to recognize your hurried voice
upon telling an anecdote
or asking about me,
to know that we saw each other before knowing each other,
these are long chapters of my life.

I suppose they will leave to you as well
this same emptiness,
this impatience to be alone
while we forget
all heat that aches of being forgotten.

The shipwreck is a kindred gift to man.
After it happens
footprints tend to have
that discomfort of lies,
memory is dogma,
loneliness my chest that you caressed.

But to change the subject,
time —a good friend
who deforms the past like love deforms a body—
will ensure that each day looks not like a gunshot,
that we will see each other again on some afternoon,
in the corner of a year and without feeling
too much impotence.

It will surely be
like becoming again,
like living again in a difficult era
or getting drunk together
to experience our hangovers separately.

Like burns under our fingers,
on a second floor
we will continue to be present and waiting
for that exact moment of shipwreck on the shore,
when upon leaving the sea
you write me in the sand:

I know love exists,
but I don't know where I learned that.