Translated by Manuel Araneda and Paulina López
Tobacco can cause cancer
but the lack of it these verses
a flying bird’s shadow
and it breaks pecking at it
an egg shadow embedded in the lung.
Cigar can cause complications
suffocation in the morning, bloody cough
but the lack of it for example these verses
the soliloquy of the voice
of a man with a kind of microphone
and a hole in the trachea instead of the larynx.
Smoking cigarettes can cause addiction
—if I have two vices it is because one is too much—
but you really cannot imagine it
not for a second, not until you live it
what the lack of it what the lack of it
can produce.

Roberto Aedo (1979-) is a Chilean poet, essayist, and scholar. He has published the poetry collection Replica (Réplica; Eloy, 2010) and some poems and literary essays in specialized books and magazines, but voluntarily maintains other six unpublished poetry collections.