Every day we look at each other
in a corner of Madrid.
We both have a busy morning ahead of us,
but such different jobs…
I always hear the tinkle of copper
and I look at him.
Sometimes I play that instrument.
But not as much as it should.
He always looks at me
and I lose myself in the depths of those blue eyes.
Mirrors of my luck,
hidden in a gray tangle,
that the acid of tears
has turned yellowish.
Smile without showing the teeth you don’t have
and his sincerity seems to say:
“This world is horrible.
But the best thing that ever happened to me
is to be alive.
What will your forests be?
Where he learned to ride a bicycle.
What gravel bruised your knees?
In what embrace did she extinguish her cries?
In those of the one who gave him life.
When his smile did not show his horrors.
He knew love.
O laughed with joy.
What matters least
is how he lost everything,
or if he had one at all.
And now he’s smiling at me.
Knowing that with a gesture
can teach me more than any school.
I write without knowing what I am talking about.
Always talking about ‘the others’ from above.
And I hardly detest myself…
Sometimes I feel guilty about happiness.
And always,
terribly guilty about the pain.
We who have everything,
and we just cry.
None of us asked for it.
But here we are.
Me standing,
and he sits on the floor
We looked at each other.
And he smiles.
United by a diagonal line.
During the brief time it is heard,
the music of copper.
PAULA CARRILLO
