Venice masks

Friday 1 February 2019

The Last Coffee - Cátulo Castillo

Your memory touches down like a tornado,
the autumn sun begins to set again
I watch the drizzle, and as I watch
the spoon stirs in the coffee…

In the last coffee
that your lips coldly
ordered that time
in a sighing voice.

I remember your scorn,
I recall you for no reason,
I hear you in your absence.
“We’re through now,”
you said, a goodbye
laced with sugar and bitterness…

Just like coffee,
just like love, just like oblivion!
Just like the final frenzy
of a senseless resentment…

And there, with your godlessness,
I saw myself die on my feet,
I took the measure of your vanity
and then I understood my loneliness
and its pointlessness…

It was raining and I offered you
the last coffee!

Cátulo Castillo (1906 - 1975) Argentina
Translated by Derrick del Pilar
Source: Poesía de gotán: The Poetry of the Tango

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