Gerardo Deniz

Childish

Take your kids away, take them
you who teach them to yell "hooray!" when excited.
It's profoundly untrue.
(Likewise, close the crematory oven,
what if the sideburns of a distracted onlooker catch fire
at the observation window, still scalding after incinerating Mom.)
Our representatives travel to streets, race tracks, bakeries
--easily recognized by the nursing bottles embroidered on their blue caps--
and to those kids who whine beyond description,
they hand out candy, toys, tricycles, atomic bombs,
that can generate radioactive mushrooms at least five feet tall.
What we mustn't permit, however, is spitting,
which is truly unbearable.
In these days devoted to the science of child-rearing
I climb up to the roof over and over again,
to take walks and unwind from the action:
across the maritime horizon I see
giant distant whales go by.

fr. Ton y son

tr. Mónica de la Torre