Feliz Cumpleaños

You should have been afraid of sweetness,
Pablo, with the pastries in your mouth.

Keep your honeycombs; we’re made of stone,
Things cut or crushed to record your signs,

And it’s we who go on, not living,
Your tidy children arranged in lines

Tidied for translation, confections
Of ghostly, evanescent sweetness

Curling in fine mists from your meanings
So unlike our mere material,

So unlike our harsh machinery,
Machinery which is much more like

The technologies of hospitals,
Like the one where you were dragged to die.

It’s we who lie, words about sweetness,
Black verses unmelted by your death.

We were never made to feed the world,
No matter how honeyed with your breath.