What is left of you
is a long road towards darkness
in the evening quiet
of a neighbourhood
in the outskirts of Buenos Aires.
Low houses
facing courtyards and gardens,
the faint light of streetlamps
on the
burning pavement.
It is summer
and the warm scent of elms
and lindens
fills the air and the senses
in the same way.
From the open windows,
like far-away echoes,
sounds arrive, voices,
festive melodies
>
marking the rhythm
of our footfalls
over the cobblestones.
And we,
hand in hand,
go forward undaunted
beneath
the archway of stars,
excited by our
projects,
by the fervid
urgency of youth.
That summer evening
in Buenos Aires,
shy adolescents
we
arrogant, bold,
unaware
of the abyss
awaiting us
only a few yards ahead.
translated by Brenda Porster