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Julio Ortega

Cross County

Translated by Michael L. Smith

Joy
that ideal verb
modifies the hours
in the breathing river

surrounded
by the desert
the pallid beast
loses itself
in the rain
of memory

soothes its breath
its wound
like the only
river of time
impossible

beast that runs
cross country
exhausting fame
of eyes

otherwise
where
does the rain remake its food
where does its body's pursuit
cease

always hurriedly
rudely
that broken breath
far from
a river

Rituales, 1976