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The Puerto Rican Literature Project The Puerto Rican Literature Project

Juan Torres Alonso

1970

As bullets eat away at the roofs over their people’s heads,

with no air except that of their own death,

two boys question the reason for hunger.

It’s just that life hides away from them daily.

Neither of them has had an early morning’s bread.

They have a sky where all gods are still dead.

One of them loses his fingers

in the napalm cave he carries on his shoulder.

The other one now grips everyone’s rifle.

But they look at each other because hunger

is carried in the same place.

The look at each other with the rage

of those forced to be orphans,

with hate from doing in so many murderers,

with that hunger that’s become a gun barrel

on the shoulders of the many.

Both of them won’t say blood

if it won’t build a nation.

Rights: Juan Torres Alonso

Dos niños con el hambre en el hombro

Juan Torres Alonso

1970

Con las balas comiéndose el techo de su pueblo,

sin más aire que el de la propia muerte,

dos niños preguntan la razón del hambre.

Es que la vida diariamente se les esconde.

Ninguno ha tenido una madrugada de pan.

Tienen un cielo donde los dioses siguen muertos.

A uno de ellos se le pierden los dedos

en la cueva de napalm que carga en el hombro.

El otro aprieta ya el rifle de todos.

Pero se miran porque el hambre

se carga en el mismo sitio.

Se miran con la rabia

de ser huérfanos por la fuerza,

con el odio de acabar tanto asesino,

con el hambre hecha cañón

en el hombro de los muchos.

Ambos no dicen sangre

si ésta no hace patria.

Rights: Juan Torres Alonso