AT THE BOOK FAIR - II Poem by José Miguel Silva

"Do you have books about pleasure?"
mumbles the unarmed
gunner of love.
A kink in his genome
had buried his heart.

Teeth on edge,
slanting eyes,
hair like tow,
his life has been refuted
by the festive canon
of the Greek to kallon.

He has no place in the world
of heroes. He learned to spell
in the school of misfortune,
and no one forgives him
the suffering that throbs
in that utterly indecent
question.