coldhearted scientist وداد

Nothing about pain

Except
that it is cloistered like a madonna in heat
and at the finest impulse
grasps and embraces me
The little dog that looks from behind a nearby tree

Nothing cleans the scab of a healed scar

It sleeps warm and comfortable
intertwining legs
Its desolate silence freezes my strength

It casts me down and hurls me
Circus elephant
trained by a withered Indian

A buzz of mosquitoes conducts the melody
after midnight
The debut of the nightmare
the catwalk

Projected figures
visit me without faces
on the firmament, the smooth ceiling

–Jesús Sepúlveda, “Hotel Marconi,” trans. Paul Dresman (Santiago: Editorial Cuarto Propio, 2006) 14.

Axé.