The love you didn’t expect is always more pure.
It is a gift of compassion where time,
more austere and uncertain, more absolute,
seems to stop on the dime of your silences.
Knowing that you are there makes me be
and grow indifferent to its power,
dig in my heels before the scythe that cuts the threads,
so thin, of our black sails.
Translation of “Sala d’espera.” First published in Natura morta amb nens (Barcelona: Quaderns crema, 2000). Copyright 2000 Francesc Parcerisas. By arrangement with the author. Translation copyright 2007 by Lawrence Venuti. All rights reserved.
