Translation of Octavio Paz
love is combat, if two kiss
the world changes, embodies wishes,
thought takes flesh, grows wings
on the shoulders of the slave, the world
is real and tangible, the wine is wine,
bread returns its flavor, water is water,
love is combat, to open doors,
to abandon a ghost with a number
condemned to life in prison
by a faceless master;
the world changes
if two look at each other and recognize themselves,
love is undressed from the names
life, when was it really ours?
when are we really what we are?
well-thought of, we never are
accustomed to our dizzy, vacant fate,
grimacing in the mirror, horror and vomiting,
life is never our own, it is for others,
life is not for anyone, everyone is
the life bread of the sun for others,
are the others all that we are?
I am when I am another, my actions
are more mine if they are also of others,
so that I can be myself if I am another,
leave me, searching among others,
the others who are not if I don't exist,
the others who give me complete existence,
I'm not, there's no me, we are always us,
life is another, always there, further away,
beyond you, beyond me, always on the horizon,
life that unlives us and makes us strangers,
that invents our face and wears it away,
hunger to be, oh death, bread of all,
I am happy that you wrote...
