The relatives are leaning over, staring expectantly.
They moisten their lips with their tongues. I can feel
them urging me on. I hold the baby in the air.
Heaps of broken bottles glitter in the sun.
A small band is playing old fashioned marches.
My mother is keeping time by stamping her foot.
My father is kissing a woman who keeps waving
to somebody else. There are palm trees.
The hills are spotted with orange flamboyants and tall
billowy clouds move behind them. 'Go on, Boy,'
I hear somebody say, 'Go on.'
I keep wondering if it will rain.
The sky darkens. There is thunder.
'Break his legs,' says one of my aunts,
'Now give him a kiss.' I do what I'm told.
The trees bend in the bleak tropical wind.
The baby did not scream, but I remember that sigh
when I reached inside for his tiny lungs and shook them
out in the air for the flies. The relatives cheered.
It was about that time I gave up.
Now, when I answer the phone, his lips
are in the receiver; when I sleep, his hair is gathered
around a familiar face on the pillow; wherever I search
I find his feet. He is what is left of my life.
I didn't understand the whole poem, but I was impressed, and that is what matters.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
Mark Strand was poet Laureate of the United States from 1990 to 1991. He died at age 80 in 2014.