Two poems
from Lila Zemborain's book Usted (Buenos Aires, Ediciones Ultimo Reino, 1998)
(translation by your host from the Spanish)

One thousandth

From one thousandth of his tangible body
escaped a drop with millions
of particles that could have been not me

And one of these was me

And one of these am I

* * *

Oh splendid night

1.

Oh splendid night
who loved even the last fragment of his body
given over to life's deliriums

How many nights we stopped
in the light of your shadow to gaze
ecstatic at satellites

Oh night I gaze at you and gaze at you
with the sunstruck hope of meeting him
in some trace of my intermittent sleep

2.

Oh night!
Empty the light of your concrete words
You evolve into afternoon like a sure blemish

You were there, it was daytime
but you were there
in the tremor of my writing

You were there while
the breaches of unloosed sleep
opened in my body

On that infinite night I wrote this poem
with voice in memory
and dreams in your grasp

It was a voice that talked of night and stars
and of his splendid death

It was a voice that talked of his
splendid death

And I understood
something unsaid

It was talk of moon
and of a fluid splendor

3.

We walked hand-in-hand on that moonlit afternoon
and looked together at the sea

We looked together at the sea

Oh splendid father