Translated by Rosalind Gill

The family of the man who paints the old railway bridges
doesn't have a house where they can lay out
the bread and water of the evening meal.
They live in railcars abandoned in the grass
with a course-skinned pig, a few rough blankets
and the bag of salt they receive at the end of the month
when the rains cease,
and lunch is nothing more than a sweet mirage.
On the platform the señora lights up her wood stove
where the sadness of the villages they visit
simmers ceaselessly on the boil.
In that huge pot, pork rinds litigate with God,
and no grace would be heard at dinner
if it weren't for the pungent smell of fried onion.

The good man's family will never have a better roof than this one:
here they dry their clothes before the fire
and talk of the year's earnings;
as if money were of some use to them,
but they have no need for it,
only ever possessing a pig that will die of a knife stab
when the baby Jesus twists and turns in the hay of Bethlehem
and the trains are detained while the engineer stokes the coal
or places secret kisses in his girlfriend's cleavage.

Always when it rains the old coaches are lit up
and the tenants lie in their straw beds.
Tomorrow they will travel, pulled by a steam engine,
they will watch the trace of smoke trailing over
the water and the fish and the dark clocks of the villages
as the passengers depart, surprised to see the widower
waving his handkerchief and lighting the last lights of the night,
thankful for the smell of freshly baked bread.

Who tells us to watch out when we go by these places?
Who looked so sadly at the painter with the thick brush
as he stealthily smoked his cigar,
caressing the hair of the señora
who keeps weaving the shawls of anguish?
Who warned of the narrowing waters
when the people of the old coaches were passing into obscurity?

These are the gifts of the voyager
as the country slips by between high cedar rails
and shady porches with rocking chairs.
This is the good fortune the soothsayers sell us
when the voyages go no further than a few bridges,
for that family that doesn't have a house
where they can turn out the lights
and whistle the relief of the last song
while the bakers light up
the splendour of the empty ovens.

Rosalind Gill teaches at York University in Toronto.