a Juan Pablo Caicedo Montaña

Your hands that will not touch
all the pain
in the hearts of men who grow old

Your hands that pull my hair
asking me to stay
like the tender threat
in the language of the feathers
of birds

Your hands whose little fingers lift the dust
from the pages of my books
and tear
at the skin of fear
and
mingle
with
desire

Those anxious hands you gently wove into
my weary hands

and then asked me to bury.
and then asked me to forget.
and then asked me to rip
like ripping grass from the entrails
of the earth.

but my hands
sting still with the memory of the sun,
though they rest beneath
the gentle comfort of
the
earth,
and they will shrivel and wait
and
they will
sleep quiet;
(harvesting
death
like little children
harvest
flowers).