my country
my country doesn’t exist
there aren’t pink dolphins there
there aren’t men who eat cats
or pineapples so big
that could block the sun
my country doesn’t exist
in the absent figure of my father
my country doesn’t exist
I come from myself
I am its pink dolphins
the head-shrinker cannibal
the Nazca lines
the light in my eyes
my country doesn’t exist
I am my country
it starts in the North
very close to the equator line
or rather at the hirsute ends of my hair
it ends in the South in Tacna
in the border with Chile
or I should say in some nail
of my left foot
the political capital of my country is not Lima
but my heart
its population is one at the most
it lacks an official religion
and doesn’t even have a coin of its own
it was born from primal clay
a product of sperm and egg
that came out of bigger countries
my country is just in South America
hardly washed by the immense foam
of the pacific sea
one day, my country will die…
(Translation by Dr. Vicent Moreno, Arkansas State University)
