9

 

poems from
Traveling Papers

Oscar Sarmiento

 

 

 

 

The Kids of Javiera Salas

 

 
In Javiera Salas -a street in Santiago-
every night a couple of bluejeans
-their bodies against a yellow cab-
don't save a kiss for tomorrow night
Not the lights of the cars or the drunks
or the eyes of the neighbor ladies
                cut off their kisses
And the kids' necking night after night
embraces like a movie's happy end
     without the cameras
          or the happy end
                 without the movie
just a bus exhaust pipe on the corner
and on the houses tin roofs
             a full moon
Are the kisses better, or the embrace,
who knows
-black hair under the streetlight-
you know the rub of the bluejeans
between kisses
        streetlight to infinity
the kids everynight in Javiera Salas