Salvador Espriu
Offering to Cerberus
I have given my life to words
and have made slow fodder of this dog hunger.
Alas, sentry, have mercy on these bones
because I come to you without an ounce of flesh!
I plunged my hands into the mysterious gold
of my old Catalan and show them to you
today, empty, white with ashes
from my bonfire of burnt kindling,
while the sound of fragile glass
recedes through the emptiness of my head.
Now I dance with grief, so they can laugh out loud,
applaud me with a thousand barks,
and crown me with a cap of bells.
–translated by Andrew Kaufman & Antonio Cortijo Ocaña
Other work by Salvador Espriu