I went to the city where you were not
But not because there were more important things
Here where I see thousands of faces
Every day
Thousands of faces
None of them
Your face that I start drawing on my
Apartment walls.
Each wall an indeterminable color
Under the incandescent light,
I try giving each one a name:
Fredo facing the bed, that guy who’d give
Me cigarettes while I waited outside your school.
I think he liked watching my longing face.
I don’t know what he longed for himself,
But I shared with him my mints.
Anselmo facing the door, remember him?
Never mind, I didn’t know him very well.
But he lent me money that day you craved for a sundae,
I don’t think I ever paid him back.
I drew your face on his wall, with your chin on your hand
Like a dead senator on a banknote
That will buy us twenty sundaes.
The wall by the door won’t have a name
But I will draw your likeness on it
When you arrive tomorrow night
To blow my solitude away like so much smoke.
I’d fill this small room with so much talk
And you would fill it with so much song
And what we won’t need are clothes
And neither brush nor pen
Because your sweat on that wall is better than ink.
