XVI: Punishing loves

Selected Poems of Juan Gelman
 translated by Hardie St. Martin

XVI:  Punishing loves

punishing loves / keeping sorrows down /
from sun to moonlight i pass / creatures
like living proofs of you / you may have seen them
often / now that they come around here dressed

like you / in other words beautiful / gentle like
when you looked sadly at the close of day /
and wanted not to sleep but to dream /
tugging at the night with two little fists