Harkaitz Cano - Four poems

THE MOMENT

I can see my youth as an open map

in front of my eyes.

W. H. Auden

This is the way we work:

we scratch at the space between each other's ribs

until we tear open the piping of the best one can give.

Then we flee, nervously drying

the traces of water that leaked onto our hands.

A handful of experiences

in which we seem to draw closer to the Moment.

Not even our skin sticks to our bones anymore

it does not take pity on us, wants nothing to do

with us.

We will talk about the Moment later, as if we knew anything.

A handful of experiences

in which seem to draw closer to the Moment.

A handful of refusals, delivered with a smile.

That uncle of yours who taught you to read people's age

by the rings in their eyes, like cut tree trunks.

Perhaps it was not in bed with a woman

or when your premonition came true and you felt so proud,

the time you came closest to the Moment.

You remember it now: your uncle sharpening the axe,

your uncle chopping off the head of the newly sacrificied calf.

You opened yours wide, rushing to count the rings

in the dead calf's eyes

and although you couldn't know it at the time

in your entire life that was the day you came closest

to the Moment.

You were five years old

it was cold outside

and the calf was younger than you.

For weeks you asked your mother

if the last thing the dead see remains

in their eyes for a long time.

They carved up the calf and took it to town.

With it, they took the moment.