Translation:The Black Heralds (1918)/The Black Cup

by César Vallejo

Night is a cup of evil. A piercing whistle
of the guard crosses it, like a vibrating pin.
Listen, you, whore, how is it that if you’re gone,
the wave is still black and still makes me burn?

Earth has the sides of a coffin in the shadow.
Hey, you, whore, don’t come back.

The flesh swims, swims
in the cup of shadows that still wounds me;
my flesh swims in it,
like in the marshy heart of a woman.

Astral ember... I’ve felt
dry touches of clay
falling on my translucent lotus.
Oh, woman! It’s for you
that the flesh of instinct exists. Oh woman!

That’s why, oh, black chalice! even when you left,
I choke on the dust;
and the desire to drink beats within my chest!