When the afternoon closes your remote windows,
its invisible doors,
so that the dust, the smoke, the ash,
impalpable, dark,
slow as the work of death
in the child's body,
grow up;
when the afternoon, at last, has collected
the last flash of light, the last cloud,
the forgotten reflection and the interrupted noise,
the night comes silently
of secret slots,
of hidden corners,
of half-open mouths,
of sleepless eyes.
Night rises with dense smoke
of the cigarette and the fireplace.
The night emerges wrapped in its mantle of dust.
The dust rises, slow.
And from an impassable sky,
getting closer and more compact,
it rains ash.
When the night of smoke, dust and ash
envelops the city, the men are left
suspended a moment,
because it was born in them, with the night, the desire.