II

 

That night I spun the sunwayllu [1]that I once brought from Lima.

​

Its sound jumped swiftly over the rocks

from one to the next without even staggering.

I approached myself and softly,

​

in the middle of the breeze, sent the message:

—tell him that I love him, that in this silence I see his smile,

that I didn't have to travel to the wall of Cuzco to see

the stones burn because they were already burning inside my skin.

 

I begged him to tell him I didn't know why,

neither what for, but that’s the way love is,

it taught me the words that

babble in the silence of a rainy night

between his legs and his slow beating heart.

The things we say when we keep quiet.

 

[1] Sumbayllu: Magic spinning top use by some quechua indigenous.  It has the ability of sending messages from one place to another.