I dreamt of you last night,
the wish to never wake to grainy color
Pervaded our language barrier,
Sometimes I think better of silence
Than the elusive warrants of dead symbols
Floating as fallen leaves in the river's current,
Now stuck in tremulous fate
We had an interpreter, you and I
He moonlights as a costumed monster
For children brought to songshows poolside
Everybody clapped in rhythms I couldn't follow
This dream was your birthday
You shone at the center, I knew,
Even without seeing you, missing you
Room by room, the wake of your presence
Left shadowy trace in sunlit dance
I felt anticipation's fear,
Much like Buenos Aires alight four years ago,
With my slab of mortared tongue
I resigned myself to a veranda snack bar,
Struggling to buy candies from a patient man,
His currency and words foreign
And I ate and watched you in your birthday crowd,
Walked to keep a vista in the afternoon:
Your carousel of smiles and laughter
Once I felt your eyes
The air cooled and turned clearer
And like Buenos Aires I finally mustered
An approach to you
Your skin perfumed with flowers
Of Hyacinth girls in giggle
You asked what it is I want
And I could only look to the costumed monster,
Whose mask lay poolside for the moment,
His human face curious for my response.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem