I SEE by Roque Dalton

I think they’ve lied to us enough.

Now I have the key to the hieroglyph
pain gave me between fits of a drunks laughter
lungers from a jailer and glares from a rabid dog
without a heart

This much I also know: it will be difficult to make men accept
this nakedness someone who possess the light reverts to
hard to convince them that so far all the laughs were turned against
them
and that all the hands held out to them had cruel nails

(its a bit chilly but it’s better that way
now that the mortal fires
the flushed faces in the middle of the orgy
the feverish myth invented by the wine settled in your blood
and spider webs clinging to the tongue have disappeared.)

I’m going to strip some of the last veils off right now.

And I’ll be the one
to take care of the wounds.