Till Death Do Us Part

by Rodrigo Palacios

Polvo serán, mas polvo enamorado. 

(They will be dust, dust in love)

— Francisco de Quevedo

TILL DEATH DO US PART

I’m afraid my death will make me stop loving you.

And yet I will long to kiss you instead of washing
your hands, your adored hands, covered
in blood in the river where we could not descend twice.

Even then, longing to just look at you,
makes me think that in death I might be able to possess
you, so I can gaze at your tumefactive lips forever.

I wonder, though, what you will do when you die,
if you will at least deign to look at or kiss my inert lips
like you did when you came,
one day too late,
to shut my eyelidless eyes
till death do us part.

I am afraid that in death,
I will not live to see any of this…

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