Una traducción de Silvia Senese para los angloparlantes o para aquellos que también gustan leer en inglés

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KID PUT THE SMALL T-SHIRT ON  

If you go to read poetry, Kid

put the small t-shirt on.

Poetry is cold, Kid.

I know they say it warms the soul

but what a soul Kid at the bus stop

this winter five o’ clock in the morning.                                            

Put the small t-shirt on Kid.

And the gloves?

You take care of the lines that cut

you take care Kid of those pigeons

of the moon

of the wind

of the west wind Kid that bleeds to death over the

houses like a scarlet tide.

Kid: Didn’ t you think about the scarf?

They ’re soon going to blow ice to the neck

to whet the little word

to wring it as if it were your nape.

You know how those guys are Kid.

They shake hands with you, they applaud you and then

they send you back with an empty stomach.

And you didn’ t eat me anything before leaving.

There I left you the potatoes and peas stew.
  
If at least you took your deceased father’s anorak

or the overcoat. But you leave without giving me a kiss

Kid.

How many times I’ ve told you have to put on the right road

Study law, get a girlfriend who at least

won’t be drunk on Sundays.

But Kid, you stroll with those who live of nothing

spinning the letters.

Where did you see the gleam of the infinite cosmos?

Since when the fire is a prepubescent blaze?

Tell me Kid, don’t go yet.

You should have put the shoes with the rubber sole on

Let’s see if so much magnetization, if such a voltage electrocutes you.

But Kid: Didn’t you see I’m alone?

That momma needs you more than the whole dictionary?

That noone at the academy or at the SADE is going to cover you up at night?

We can play Buraco, finish the strudel

watch sábados continuados beside the small rock crystal heater.

For what the double meaning

the metaphor

the synecdoche

the metonymy, Kid

if you return to me with a cold?

For what the paradox, Kid, the free verse

The alliteration, the ellipsis.

For what serves the otherness

or the mistery of death?

If everything is so simple as when you leave naked

because you live a worn out reality.

That is what they call poetry?

Come here, Kid

That momma is going to make you a soup with Manón cookies in the tea with milk.

Don’t be a fool

world should be small

world is not conquered by enlarging it with sense

nor folding, or sticking it

not even trying to break it.

The world is, watch this Kid I’m saying,

the world is like the small drawer in your wardrobe.

Like this, square, at the end of a bedroom

in your own house, with everything you need.

Come here Kid, here is your small new t-shirt.

Look at it how nice.

I bought it to Don Samuel in two payments

Put it on Kid.

I don’t want you to be cold.

Notes

The academy: Academy of Letters

The SADE: Argentine Writer’s Society

Buraco: A rummy-type card game for four players in fixed partnerships in which the aim is to lay down in groups of cards of equal rank and suit sequences, there being a bonus for combinations of seven cards or more.

Sábados continuados: A 1964 TV programme conducted by a well-known journalist named Antonio Carrizo.

Manón: Sweet cookies sold since 1960 by one top selling brand of cookies and crackers in Argentine.