Nightime Worship

                                                For Luis Muñoz

Let them give you Mondays back

and mark them holidays in your day book

so the week won’t weigh as heavy on you

and so you can feel the teeth of the streets

nibble with tenderness

the last stretch of hours on Sunday.

Let them give you the hours of Mondays back

and you can safeguard them under the bed sheets

so the city will sleep in your lap

and so that those who look at you will get their fill.

Let them bring you the rhythm of dreams

and you’ll dance to them,

and the light of your embrace

will keep a secret safe.

Let Mondays learn

your body by heart.

Let nothing be missing from your world

because the god of night

rested on Mondays

to wait for you.

 Translated by Elizabeth Polli

“Nightime Worship” is from Child’s Play (Harbor Mountain Press, 2012).

You can read and listen to the poem in the original Spanish here.