After the recital

That’s it, I’ve recited, it’s all over.
Now, surely, a friend will embrace me,
with strength, with fury, with slight nostalgia,
hugs that tell you: it’s all right like this.

Some woman, open, dazzled by my verses,
crossing that side aisle, before I leave,
will throw herself into my arms, with the utmost firmness,
like a bewildered bomb against my eyes.

Then there will be those glasses of passionate wine,
and glances and words wet by a weeping,
like a thing of brotherly tenderness for the poet.

Later the night will come to show my solitude,
and there will be no verse for me to understand
why did I fly so high, in love, to fall so alone?

MIGUEL OSCAR MENASSA (Argentina 1949)

Translation: Germain Droogenbroodt – Stanley Barkan

from “La patria del poeta”