No cuelgues written by Alí Calderón
Translated from the Spanish by Guadalupe Robles

DON’T HANG UP,

                really 
   
         don’t go 	stay here

don’t answer that waiting call 

don’t allow for me to hear that

                                hello 	    how are you 
      
                                   tone
        heaven for him

	shit to me

don’t say to me 

                                I’ll call you later 
    
                     because that time

                         I know

                         we all know

                         we always knew	

never arrives

              This silence 
      to a century of light years 

      could be confused with peace


       I explained 

      time and again 

            in every form 

     that you are
         your smile is 
         your breasts are 
         your lips were


     not the momentary joy of loving each other and being one

                                 but the infinite 
                                          irrevocable 
                                          indispensable 
	  	 	                  just 
                  condition 
                  of happiness






Migraines and tremors have already made my body sore

              Filled with the instability 
       	                   the dizzyness
                           unbalanced breastbone 
                           appendix 
                           both ventricles



     I am a shred 
           a scream 
           a rope made tense 
                   by anguish		

                         slowly 
                               but with certainty we near elimination

                                                     Old and insignificant 

                                                     like pieces from a boring 
                                                museum
	

                                                                     by no one 
                                                              visited




our memories crawl and erode
nothing left of the literal electricity that flew over all principles
nothing left in your eyes   


                      tenderness and tremor when you would look


      even less of the love that germinated 
                                  and expanded 

             when we made love

Everything that we signify 
                     and are 
                       
                              is in the ocean of anxious impossibilities


      How lonely 
      how sad
      how unjust 


is the notification of the phone 


        how unjust is unrequited love


                                          so much misery in this 
                                     asymmetry 


Our place 
       as a way of calling it 
      
            has finally been lifted


       all safety was destroyed	

                             I surrender my swords 


             I am at the mercy of humiliation 


                           I give up









I hang up the phone.