Future Plans

At forty we hate the jobs
that pay our bills
that get us through the month.
We claim something called dignity
that feels a lot like sadness.

We have jobs and this condo on the beach
before the sea we dream
a miracle:
we cast our clothes off in the sand, loyal
to the open sky, each of us
before the other
our naked bodies’ strangenesses,
the light’s fragility,
a living love, still not enough.

At forty we have two kids running,
shouting, crying
that the sand is too hot,
that we argued
that nothing here brings joy.

We have homes, children, and so much fear
of death and time’s contracts
like regular people, we fear
happy people, happy fears,
the sweet insomnia from
the old days or everyday routine
nostalgia.

At forty in a country that won’t claim us,
we forget how to catch planes and
say I love you in other languages,
how travel carries violence,
how to sleep soundly in a distant hotel
where no one calls at bedtime.

At forty, we are happy
haplessly happy
securely stable.

But what follows love and routine,
what comes after summer and property,
but reality’s rebel
returning?

Translation from the Spanish