… De cartón piedra [English translation]

She was glory dressed in tulle

with the gaze distant and blue

who would smile in the shop window

with lips thin and maroon

and false patent-leather shoes

that would sparkle at the touch of the sun.

Clean and beautiful. She was always in style.

Well-dressed as if to attend a wedding.

And I, at all hours would go to see her

because I loved this woman

of papier mâché,

from St. Stephen's to the Epiphany,

between bargains and news

my sexual preferences were getting more soft.

She wasn't like one of those dolls from April

that scratched me from the front and on the side.

That ate my orange in segments.

That stripped me of laid-back anticipation.

With the promptness that rent is paid,

she forgets the air that yesterday she breathed.

She plays the cards that the moments gives her:

"tomorrow" is only an adverb of time.

No, no. She was waiting in her window

watching me turn that corner…

Like a girlfriend,

like a little birdie, demanding me:

"Liberate me, liberate me…

and let's flee to write a story."

With a throw of a stone I took out the window

and I ran, ran, ran with with to my door.

Her entire body trembled in my arms.

The moon of March smiled to us.

Under the rain we danced a waltz,

one, two, three, one, two, three… it all made no difference.

And I was speaking to her about our future,

and she was crying in silent… I swear you it.

And between four walls and a roof

it crashed against her chest

pain after pain.

I had between my hands the universe

and of the past we made a verse

lost within a poem.

And then, they arrived.

They took me by force from my home

and they locked me in between these four white walls,

where my friends come to see me

from month to month…,

from two to two…,

and from six to seven…

• Artist:Joan Manuel Serrat
• Album:Mi niñez