STRANGER Poem by Fernando Linero

At the doors of the city
I lurk in the harvest of your breast.
While the knife visits the scribes of dawn,
I paint your walls, female full moon.
Under loose garments
a woman expelled from the provinces of sleep,
bequeathed by uncertain skies in the wakefulness of the festivities,
has raised over me
the sound of fifes, with all their pack of hounds,
with all their throngs.
Stranger I have dreamed about
in the noisiest squares.
Under her tunic, with the tips of my fingers,
I have spoken the language of night.
Under her steps I have arrived with the sediment of mine
to found immense patios for the birth of her words,
brief like the shuddering of a poem.
Stranger infested with winds fresher than water,
female in the alliance of fruit.