If I Wake in the Middle of the Night

If I wake in the middle of the night,

touching you is enough. 

Your young man’s body

breathes at my side

like a free animal.

This musculature constructed

out of constant training 

rests by my side.

The tennis player who triumphs

on the public courts every Tuesday,

the artist, the poet, the one who writes

his dissertation, the one who designs,

the one who sings, the one who dances,

the one who smiles dazzlingly,

the one who remains silent,

the one who reads,

the one who struggles with me in bed,

the companion of all my hours

has in these moments a different perfection.

The happiness, the grace

that in the sun-filled hours composes

the beauty that moves 

is now solved in equilibrium.

I like to be in the dark.

Nothing exists but your temperature 

summarizing the true facts of the world.

In the middle of the night,

I suddenly have an indeterminate

number of minutes

to love you

with the bewilderment and lucidity

of someone wide awake.

I feel the good being in your skin.

The rhythm of your breath

sings to me the simplest music.

It indicates my place

in the cosmos. Beside

your virile serenity. I begin

to fall asleep

embracing your body.

If I wake in the middle of the night,

touching you is enough.

 Translated by Curtis Bauer
“If I Wake in the Middle of the Night” was published in Eros Is More (Alice James Books, 2014).

You can read and listen the poem in the original Spanish here.