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Events
CESAR VALLEJO (Peru: 1892- Paris- 1938)
Translations by Michael Smith and Valentino Gianuzzi
DEAD IDYLL
What will be doing at this very hour, my sweet, Andean Rita
of the wild reed and the dusk berry;
now that Byzantium smothers me, and that blood
dozes, like insipid brandy, inside me.
Where will her hands be that on those evenings,
in a contrite posture, ironed-out forthcoming whitenesses;
now, in this rain that strips away
my desire to go on living.
What of her flannel skirt; of her
worries; of her pace;
of her zest of those May sugar-canes of the place.
She must be at the door staring at the cloud-lined sky,
and then trembling she will say: "Jesus! How cold it is!"
And on the roof-tiles a savage bird will cry.