DOORBELLS RING Comments

for Luis Vidales
They knock, they call.
Doorbells ring in the house.
Someone searches for something at unexpected times.
They may be from the post office
Mormons offering Bibles
Some absent-minded stranger
or the beggar coming for a loaf of bread.
It may be the neighbour wanting to talk about the high cost of living
or her husband the moneylender come to collect the interest.
But maybe it's the plumber
or the gypsy woman forecasting bad times,
or strange plagues and strong infections.
Who is it knocking at this unexpected hour?
It is not love,
it is not the son, or my father.
It surely is death and the used-clothes dealer
coming for my defeated body
or the landlord to evict me,
which is the same thing.
...
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