III
With His Index Finger He Writes on the Air
(For Spanish translation click here)

With his index finger he writes on the air:

“Long live the comrades! Pedro Rojas,”

from Miranda del Ebro, father and man,

husband and man. Pedro and his two deaths.

Paper of wind, they killed him: it’s gone!

Feather of flesh, they killed him: it’s gone!

Inform all comrades hurry up!

Pole on which they hung his piece of wood,

they’ve killed him;

they’ve killed him to the base of his thumb!

they killed, at one, Pedro and Rojas!

Long live the comrades

at the head of his writing in air!

Long live the V of the vulture in the guts

of Pedro

and of Rojas, of the hero and martyr!

After his death they opened him up

down the middle finding within him a body big enough

to hold the soul of the world,

and in his coat pocket a dead spoon.

Pedro also used to eat

among the creatures of his flesh, to clean and

paint the table and living softly

in representation of all the world.

And this spoon walked always in his coat,

awake or asleep, always, at all times,

that spoon with its living death, and her symbols.

Inform all comrades at once!

Long live the comrades at the foot of this spoon forever and ever!

They killed him, forced him to die,

Pedro, Rojas, the worker, the man, the one

who was once a child looking up toward the sky,

and then he grew up, turning red,

and fought with his cells, his no, his yet, his hungers, his pieces.

They’ve killed him sweetly

between the hair of his wife, the Juana Vasquez,

in the hour of fire, at the year of the bullet,

and just when he was getting close to all.

Pedro Rojas, after his death,

raised himself up, kissed his bloodstained coffin,

he wept for Spain,

and wrote with his finger on the air!

“Long live the comrades! Pedro Rojas.”

His corpse was full of the world.