CÉSAR VALLEJO

Bad for my bones, this dampness
that penetrates like a hair shirt.

Here, a native from the interior,
high cities, dried-up or dead,
succumbs to the ocean light.
Mexico City in the wasteland,
once forests and lakes,
now terror and who knows what.

In through the window
flows the air of Lima,
dampness
like weeping.

On this Friday,
April 15,
half a century
after Vallejo died.

And one talks and talks.