The Worm by ROBERTO BOLAÑO

Let us give thanks for our poverty, said the guy dressed in rags.
I saw him with my own eyes: drifting through a town of flat houses,
built of brick and mortar, between the United States and Mexico.
Let us give thanks for our violence, he said, even if it's futile
like a ghost, even if it leads to nothing,
just as these roads lead nowhere.
I saw him with my own eyes: gesturing over a rosy background
that resisted the black, ah, sunset on the border,
glimpsed and lost forever.
Sunsets that enveloped Lisa's father
at the beginning of the fifties.
Sunsets that gave witness to Mario Santiago,
up and down, frozen stiff, in the backseat
of a contrabandist's car. Sunsets
of infinite white and infinite black.


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