Every afternoon in Granada,
every afternoon, a boy dies.
Every afternoon, the water sits down
to speak with his friends.
The dead wear moss wings.
The clouded wind and the cleaned wind
are two pheasants that fly through towers
and the day is a wounded little boy.
Left in the air not a lark wisp
when I found you by the wine caves.
Not left anywhere on the earth a cloud crumb
when you choked yourself with the river.
A water colossus fell over the mountains
and the valley went turning with stray dogs and lilies.
Your body, in the violet shadow of my hands,
was, cold on the bank, an indifferent archangel.
Translated from the Spanish by Robert Eric Shoemaker