The Bundle

All day long I walked with the bundle
in my hands.
It looked like a hobo’s sack for clothes and food,
deformed but manageable. It smelled like food.
When I gave some food to a woman
a head fell from it,
black and big, with big lips,
slightly pointed, a woman’s.
Since she didn’t have a body I took it to a café
and left it on a chair.
I called the waiter so he could see
the head there.
Since the body is missing, the head will die.
It was black and shiny, oval,
and it moved the eyes and lips a little.
The waiter asked for my passport
and let me go.
Everyone in the plaza carried their formless bundle
smelling like bread, like a kid, like whatever falls.
A deformed bundle, oblong, hard to carry
in your hands.
They dumped mine on me
in an elevator.
It smelled sweet, like bread and lettuce.
No one sold hair in the plaza.
In the plaza lips and eyes moved
a little under the sun.
Since the body is missing, the head will die.

Translated by Curtis Bauer
“The Bundle” is from La tierra nos agobia [The Ground Oppresses Us] (Pre-Textos, 2011).

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