Bats hide in the eaves of the customs house.
But where do the men hide who also fly
Their whole lives in the dark,
Bumping against white walls of love?
Our father's house was full of bats
hanging like lanterns from the old rafters
that supported the roof threatened by the rains.
"These children suck our blood," my father would sigh.
What man will throw the first stone at that mammal
who, like himself, is nourished by the blood of other beasts
(my brother! my brother!) and, banded together, demands
the sweat of his like even in the dark?
Man hides on the halo of a breast as young as the night;
on the fabric of his pillow, in the lantern light
man hoards the golden coins of his love.
But the bat, sleeping like a pendulum, only hoards the
offended day.
When he died, our father left us (myself and my eight
brothers)
his house where, at night, it rained through the broken
tiles.
We redeemed the loan and saved the bats.
Between our walls they wrangle, blind as we.
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