Urgent - Roberto Sosa

This afternoon a child, not even two years old,
got lost.
He’s got curls like ripples on a lake.
A pudgy little boy
with huge eyes
like a stray lamb.

He only knows four words: Mommie,
Daddy,
Pipanny, for Granny, and Cuba.
When he’s upset he yells papo! to protest
or to show he’s going to cry.
His name is Nestor
but at home we call our little piece of people
Don Tiqui.

If it’s the police who find him
and we hope with all our hearts it won’t be
please please don’t let them hurt him.

This little boy is wearing a sailor suit
and carrying a music box.

If he does not come back, what man what woman what creature
in this house
will ever again be able, no matter how they try,
to lift their fallen wings?

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Roberto Sosa (1930 - 2011) Honduras
Translated Jo Anne Engelbert
Source: BOMB — Artists in Conversation