First I forgot you in your voice. <br />If you were talking to me now, <br />here by my side, <br />I would ask, “Who’s there?” <br /> <br />Then your step became unfamiliar. <br />If a shadow—even one of flesh <br />and blood—escapes in the wind, <br />I can’t tell if it’s you. <br /> <br />You shed your leaves slowly <br />in the face of one winter: your smile, <br />your eyes, the color of your clothing, the size <br />of your shoes. <br /> <br />More leaves: <br />your flesh, your body fell away, <br />until all that was left was your name: seven letters. <br />And you went on living, <br />dying, hanging on <br />to those letters with body and soul. <br />Your skeleton, the remains of it, <br />your voice, your laughter, those seven letters. <br />And then your body alone uttered them. <br />Your name slipped away from me. <br />Now those seven letters drift unattached, <br />unknown to each other. <br />Advertisements go by on streetcars; your letters <br />light up the night with their colors, <br />they travel on envelopes spelling out <br />other names. <br /> <br />You will wander there, <br />dissolved, undone, irretrievable, <br />in the name that was you, <br />risen up <br />to some crazy heaven, <br />some abstract glory in the alphabet.<br /><br />Pedro Salinas y Serrano<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/deaths-3/
