Homero Aridjis: Self-Portrait at Age Sixteen

He smokes his first Tiger
between the pines on Altamirano;
the town lies at his feet, a sleeping
body of adobe and tile.
Lank, longhaired,
beardless, he makes love
to everything: lark, oak,
the butterfly and the distance.
The days skip by without name or dat,
ignoring the cage of hours,
the same as a desire
that could take shape anywhere.
There below, the streets are an open hand
between whose fingers
the sun plays at
throwing its knives.
On the ridge the yap
of a fox is heard, a hind´s a bleat;
drunk on green rain
his eyes enter the underbrush.
The sun yellows his face,
paints his hands with its setting.
He leaves his shadow between the pines,
his Tiger, crushed out on the ground.



Translated from the Spanish by George McWhirter