Serrat Juan Manuel
24 Unforgettable Pages
My Nineties
I was ten years old and had a cat
hairy, tightrope walker and fool
that was waiting for me on the wires of the patio
back from school.
I had a balcony with basil
and an army of bellboys
and a train with tin cars
broken between two stations.
I had a blue sky and a cobblestone garden
and a story to burn trembling on my skin.
He was a beautiful rider
on my scooter
skimming every corner
like a swallow
with nothing to forget
because yesterday I learned to fly,
wasting time facing the sea.
I had a gloomy house,
which mother dressed with tenderness
br/>and a pillow that spoke and knew
about my ambition to be a priest
I had a yellow canary
that only trilled its sorrow
listening to that old barrel organ
o my Galena radio br/>pox-bitten
and school orphans,
stealing grapes and corn
sucking cane and licorice.
I think I was happy then.
I had four sacraments
and a friendly guardian angel
and a Paris Borrowed and grimy Hollywood
hidden among my books.
I had a brunette girlfriend
who opened my senses to the moon
playing forbidden games
in the shadow of a fig tree
I went through childhood imitating my brother.
Breaking the wind and stoning the sun.
My mother raised gray hair
stitching pajamas,
my father became old
br/>without looking in the mirror,
and my brother left home, for the first time. And where, where was my childhood?