Deaths

The first thing I forgot was your voice.
Now if you were to
speak here at my side
I would ask, "Who is that?"

After that I forgot your footstep.
If a shadow were to gutter
in the wind of flesh
I would not be sure whether it was you.

One by one all of your leaves fell
before a winter: the smile,
the glance, the color of your clothes, the size
of your shoes

Even then your leaves went on falling:
your flesh fell away from you, your body.
I was left your name, seven letters of you.
And you living,
desperately dying
in them, body and soul.
Your skeleton, its shape,
your voice, your laugh, seven letters, those letters.
And repeating them was your only life, your body.
I forgot your name.
The seven letters move about, unconnected,
unknown to each other.
They form advertisements in streetcars; letters
burn at night in colors,
they travel in envelopes shaping
other names.
You're somewhere about,
all in bits, by now, dismantled and impossible.
There you are, your name, which was you,
risen
toward various stupid heavens
in an abstract alphabetical glory.


~Pedro Salinas (Translated by W.S. Merwin. Roots & Wings: Poetry from Spain 1900-1975. Hardie St. Martin, Editor. Harper & Row. 1976. p.103-105)