PARIS, NINETEEN HUNDRED AND SOMETHING Comments

So busy is Vallejo
Counting the hours on an abacus of shadows
That he doesn't note
The passing of No One
On the footpath the other side.

So engrossed are they both
That the coffee goes cold, and the silence,
The silver spoon,
The chatterers' pipes
In the Café de la Opera
Without pronouncing their nevers,
Their nevermores.

Vallejo listens
In Paris's broken night
To a huayno coming down from the sierra
Wrapped in fog and dark,
In alpacas and in tears.

Sometimes, clapping him on the back,
An ailing god, not seriously ill, comes to call,
And the whistle of the train
Does not let him hear what the god has to say.
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