XVIII
(For Spanish translation click here)

Oh the four walls of the cell.

Ah the four bleaching walls

that open without fail the same number.

Nursery of nerves, crooked dice,

how its four corners wrench

at the daily shackled extremities.

Amorous mistress of innumerable keys

if only you were here, if you could see

what hour these four walls are

without closing in. Against them we would be,

with you, two, two more than ever.

You would not cry, my liberator!

Ah the walls of the cell.

They hurt me, most of all

the two long ones that tonight

remind me a bit of mothers now dead

upon bromine slopes

leading a child by the hand each one.

I find only myself left behind,

with my right hand, serving for both,

lifting in search of a third arm

housing, between my where and my when,

this futile manhood of mine.