Quiet at Last

Selected Poems of Juan Gelman
 translated by Hardie St. Martin

Quiet at Last

quiet at last / so terribly alone / without kisses / my comrades
think me night after night / they toss and turn
unable to sleep / restless under sheets
of earth or water where they’re going away /

gone / eaten away by the truth / i toss and turn /
around this shame like a wing / fly
little bird / fly / my son’s face in the middle
of my woman or loneliness / pull away /

i’m burning with the fire you burn
lowered / comrades / or neighborhoods of fire
my soul passed through like a voice
walking now with the world’s feet