Mariel One, page 10
Severo Sarduy - “Sonetas” (Sonnets)
Roberto Valero - “Straits of Florida”
English translation
Straits of Florida - Roberto Valero
Unfortunately it is true. Friend,
"... there in the silent depth
that fear cannot penetrate, there are so many bones, ..."
so many brothers of ours that we could not embrace,
sit with in Miami to drink
the usual coffee,
to argue,
to hate each other for the moment,
so much broken gazing that searched in vain for
the coastal horizon, the awaited mast.
Now all dreams go from wave
to foam, from shell to burning sun,
so much infantile heart in skinny stomach
so much broken, rotten wood,
dirty wood that did not know how to bring hope
to an island, a Key, a home already planned
in advance.
But one day, David,
the strewn spectres reach Cuba,
they will arrive with their hands open in a sway of flames,
their eyes eaten up by fervent salt,
and on the forehead engraved the deepest sign of blue.
It was very wide, your Strait, foolish Geography,
it could not be crossed on tethered boards in flight,
the most exact monument is in Key West,
the most accusing,
that group of logs that arrived without the castaways, ...
Oh God! Such eternal restlessness!
I ask you, for the next ones,
for those who right now plan to cross that mass of waters
that you gave us in the north of the Island.
Lord, if some time a blonde girl,
old people driven almost crazy,
silent young people ...
climb in hope onto a dead tree,
do not let them fall,
they are my friends, God,
my parents,
the girl is my best poem,
it is the whole nation fleeing from the open tear
of your absence,
and the deep blue lights up in red:
revealing coral from unlocked blood.