Com/Positions — (Paris, 1984-1985)

Selected Poems of Juan Gelman
translated by Hardie St. Martin

The Prisoner

gazelle / you’re far away /
yet you’re closer to my bones than even i am /
the world may think i’m a free man
yet each word from you is my mistress /
and though i may walk upright in everyone’s eyes
i am the prisoner of my loneliness for you /
without father or mother / without water or bread /
i walk naked in the sun of your absence /
joseph tsarfati