http://estocolmoblog.blogspot.com.ar/2012/10/la-culebra.html
Traducción al inglés de Harry Havilio.
To cross the desert barefoot
Is not the best choice
One should wear high boots and rough fabric jeans
Just in case of snakes
It is advisable to carry water, a compass, antidotes and sunglasses
Because of the damaging light
That dazes and finally blinds
Also it is recommended not to leave the footpath,
Straighten up, the top of the head towards the sky
And look ahead
There in the woods of lean palm trees
Where the river ends in a swamp
But it was not a night like the others
In which I spent my time trying to kiss
In every possible way
I always left almost at the preliminaries
Between metaphors and shoulders
Between ice-creams and hallucinations
Sucking the air and, better yet, the thumb
With my mouth open
Driving the buffalos away with my tongue
From inside out
Like a hunting toad
Timid, outrageous
And before that, around the fireside, songs and sparkling wine
Which we smuggled in
Thinking of the future
Until someone put us on guard, did you hear those noises?
Jackals, teachers, rapers?
A timely panic was produced
That came to an end through crowding
Within our tents we spent thousands of hours intermingling
Locking our elbows, colliding with our ankles, watching the glow worms
Everybody speaking out freely, throats at knife`s length
Unrestrained, sad and ammoniac
Crazy, stupid, separated
Lesbians, death, planetary were also spoken
Some of us smelled fresh blood for the first time
Others faked deep sleep
Nobody dared to go out until sunrise
Fearing the buffalos
Which imagined or not
Left their excrements at the stakes
Meanwhile and for ever
I fell in love
That is why I darted out barefoot to the desert
Feverish like boiling skin
Forlorn in the world
Not heeding any counsels
In the middle of nowhere
Still far away from those palmtrees
That thicken and redden
Like tropical demons
I am transformed into a ball of temptations
A blue ball, frivolous, sentimental
And I feel urged to write
Her name, my name, anything that comes to my mind
Then, in that precise and lasting moment
I lean in a crouching position
To pick up a striped sand coloured branch
That will guide and comfort me
To be used as a pointer
But it is neither a branch nor sand that I grasp
I realize late
That a well camouflaged snake
Changes from a static to a frantic stage
And binds my hand like a rubber and honey spear
The shock is dreadful, necessary
And we will no longer be able to loosen away
Even if we wanted to
While my skin does not fall off entirely
And she will not change all her scales
