The City

To whom or to what are the singers singing? Someone will remain, to remember like this:There were the ones that were dying of cold, at the doors of the churches or in the gates of the parks in front of the beach; there were someones that will appear abandoned in between the rocks, with broken bones and the flesh exploded by the lead of the bullets. A man, tied up, was listening to the screams of his daughter, while they were breaking her by half in the next room. The prisoners did recogni e the torturers for the !oices and for the smells and the ways of hitting. "e disco!ered that we ha!e fear, and this filled us with astonishment and shame. The city was li!ing with the breath cutted. The air was poisoned by distrust: talks were in low !oice, the !oices did not ha!e an echo, the !oices were not coincident with the faces. to be free resulted suspicious, but we found oursel!es unlocked and ali!e and we felt as if to congratulate oursel!es. The children were drawing tunnels and little animals that were escaping through the tunnels. #o!e making was done as if it will not be repeated ne!er again: $if % fall and they do not kill me, % will send you letters under someone&s tongue$. To say:$till next week$, was a silly thing. 'ou thought, you said, you doubted: someone was murmuring your name before loosing consciousness: you recogni ed your best friend&s watch on the wrist of the soldier that was coming to arrest you. (ays were not taking each other by the hand, they did not walk in line, kindly, slow flux of the time&s oil, coming and going, it goes and it comes, no: days were trampling down and piling on each other and were falling into emptiness with their legs like !ines: bu ing; they will attack; they are harrasing : you were born tomorrow, you will die yesterday: you said will say goodby: lo!e or fear burning in those eyes that looked at me the next last time. )duardo *aleano