Self-Portrait at Fifty-Four Years Old
                                                         Homero Aridjis

I am Homero Aridjis,
I was born in Contepec, Michoacán,
I am fifty-four,
with a wife and two girls.

In the dining room of my house
I had my first loves:
Dickens, Cervantes, Shakespeare
and the other Homer.

One Sunday evening
Frankenstein emerged from the village movie house
and at the stream’s edge
gave his hand to a boy, who was me.

Prometheus, made from human scraps,
continued on his way, but ever since,
through that meeting with the monster,
the verb and the horror are mine.

 
© 2002 by Homero Aridjis