drunk on time, on cruelty

Every day, I come to watch you pass, 

little steamer, magical and always distant. . . 

Your eyes are a pair of blondish captains, 

your lip a slip of kerchief, red and 

bidding its blood goodbyes. 

 

I will come to watch you pass— 

drunk on time, on cruelty, you magical 

little steamer, always distant—until that day 

when the evening star takes leave. 

 

The rigging, the traitor winds, the currents 

from a woman who just walked past— 

Then your cold captains will issue orders, 

And the one to take leave will be me.

 

[César Vallejo {1892-1938}, 'Icy Bulwarks', from Los Heraldos Negros]