Final Moon

What is this feeling of looking for you
certain I won't find you?
What is this timeless dread that makes
me evoke you despite my fear?
My longing will not be quelled
(to quell it would be more torment)
so I'll never stop gazing at you.

Moon, once more I find myself
pondering the dangerous roads open to me.
The past is everything that's been lost;
if I survive the present
(despite my wounds)
I shall ask for nothing in the future--
a man who's lived in hell
that’s all he can hope for.
You are a strange lover, moon,
I admire your face
(I own it)
you and I are a river
we cross a tundra,
endless, circular, infinite
where I howl your name.

Poem by Reinaldo Arenas
New York, December 1985

Translated by Jaime Manrique
Published in The World Magazine