Look, my friend, I would never have wanted

foolish death
to tangle your hair
like an onion trembling on the ground,
your name was Mariela, and you were good like
the moon, like the color of carrots,
like a seagull in the foam,
look, I have here,
in one of these pockets
the love I never gave you
the love you never asked for, sometimes I squeeze it
as if I were pressing with my fingers
the small and hard
head of a bird. Don't ask me, my friend,
why on this sunny August morning
I'm thinking of you a little like one
thinks of the river, of the petrified footprint
of a megatherium over the centuries,
I would like to have you with me for a moment
to look at your clear, distant,
ancient eyes, a brushstroke of the first blue that
the gods had conceived, I don't know
what I would say to you, what I would have promised,
so that your eyes do not close
so that the path does not break under your feet. You were my friend, I think I was
your friend. Don't ask me why I think of you
this morning of sun mixed with cold,
you were called Mariela, the same as
the sea is called when it has the stars above it.