The afternoon is in love with the place. I speak of a patio
with birdcages and drawings in chalk
that were of suns and great ships under sail.
Like a prayer, those Sundays, with lemon
juice my mother made my hair shine.
I bore in my mouth a thousand starfish.
In the streets they see April growing without geraniums.
When the dogs cried we longed for our dead.
The torments of hell form part of the landscape
and the most pure dialectic of those days.
Still, in evoking them, November convenes
a disquiet of iron wire and liturgical ornaments.
Rain pours down in the sheepfolds of our paradises.
The constellations of starlings remind me
of Bosch's allegorical skies and the literary theme
of the expiry date of life and dreams.
They remind me of the long plaits of first love,
the roses that rot on the tombs of the vanquished
and my childhood of harlequins and shrapnel.

Translated by Julie Wark