Salvados / Francisco Pérez Perdomo

Saved

Saved
but still as though dressed
                                      in that black slime
disasters leave in their wake
and that dust and that mark
of having lived for so long
                               in such a strange place
in the room that’s so closed
and for so many reasons so similar
                                                  to that spot
with hands accustomed to darkness
and the ring of dull eyes guarding us
and those masks that seem twisted
by the stigmas of the most
                              diverse circumstances
and now returning and reiterated
                                              like a habit
to the daily illnesses
sweet accomplice
after having lived somber
                          and unpunished by chance




Fantasmas y enfermedades (1961)




{ Francisco Pérez Perdomo, El hilo equívoco de los vocablos. Antología poética, Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 2014 }