WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION

To “Leona”, our old mastina, the beloved and brave black dog, “my companion, my little sister.”
***
[... by high eardrums of May,
The shepherd hung and hanged Leona from the strongest and tallest trunk of the blossoming apple trees,
and, me, kneeling on the ground, or squatting, with astonished eyes, crying,
that one, the one with the iris stranded and delivered behind the crack in the door]
***

…a wild hurricane of needles and breakers creaked in the air and shook the orchard,
the vertebrae of the world and the udders of flowers;
The darkness spread without further ado, and, aimless and uncontrolled, love and the afternoon fluttered,
and so the swan of life and the swan of death;
…that no one, no one knows how much pain is,
that nobody, that nobody knows...!!!
…and woe, woe is me, because I return to the infamous slit
and children still emerge with their chrome and broken irises,
lying on the ground...;
…and no, this is not another inclemency nor another torment,
what to leave “suddenly raw and raw”;
…and now, now you see,
Sadness has no more payments than an open gap in front of memory,
a May of children and destruction and this absence that attentively observes me, follows me and pursues me,
the one that inquires into me and burns my soul, the one that is insistent and, atrociously alive,
stalking me, hurting me and hurting me, watching me forever.
***
Antonio Justel
https://www.oriondepanthoseas.com
​***