To die

How part from oneself

(without losing oneself as well):

open empty boxes,

deposit movement,

free air, fresh wind,

and not leave for the others

but an election in the darkness,

a glance in an elevator

or some portrait with dead eyes?

In some official manner

there is to be settled an absence

not settling aught,

that curiosity

might feel on its face the blast

when the speeches uncork

and find beneath their feet

the missing person blushing hot.

Pablo Neruda