The Burden
There lay my body . . . with nobody wearing it.
I began its suffering . . . I dressed a man with it.
But this sad piece of horseflesh
whinnies poems if it’s hungry,
kicks the horizon if it dreams;
I draw it into disputes and it produces forests,
when it kisses, it’s like nobody but me . . .
I don’t know what to do with this body of mine,
somebody leased it to me, I don’t know when . . .
They gave it to me naked, clean, gentle,
it was guiltless when I put it on,
but after a bit,
reason stains it, whatever in it deserves worship . . .
I want to give it back as I received it;
but
I know time is all I have been given.
[Translated from the Spanish by Rhina P. Espaillat]