Winter Trees Cough Like Old Men

Winter trees cough like old men
about death's white nightmares
while the rain talks in Latin.
They cough about the sobbing tragic
ash, they bind valises for leaving,
they darken—and in the chill
of frost from the sun, the lungs
bristle to see coffins hidden
in the dry capes of kings.


Eugenio Montejo
translated from the Spanish by Kirk Nesset
The Paris Review
Fall 2008

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