The Empty House

Invite no one

into our house,

for they will repair

the doors, windows, staircase

and windows,

they will see the moths

in the corners,

the rusty locks,

the blind, ruined lamps.

Don’t bring anyone to our house

for they would only anguish

on account of your table,

your bed, the tablecloth,

the furniture, laugh pitifully

at the cups, pretend to

endure nostalgia for my name,

make fun, what is more, of our hammock.

Don’t bring people to our house any more

for they would write you songs,

enervate your soul,

whisper mischievously,

plant a flower at your window.

That’s why – I beg you – you must

not bring people to our house,

for they would turn pink,

greenish, reddish, blueish,

on discovering broken walls

and withered plants.

They would want to sweep out the corners

open our blinds,

and find, tucked away among my books

the perverse excuses they are searching for.

Don’t bring anyone to our house any more,

for they would discover our ridiculous things

carry you off to faraway beaches

tell you tales of shipwrecks

drag you from our house.

Siomara España (b. 1976 Guayaquil, Ecuador)

English translation by Richard Gwyn, of ‘La casa vacia’, first published in Poetry Wales Vol 47 No 1, Summer 2011.