Photo by Diego Costa on Unsplash
Gracias Dios, por el fútbol, por Maradona, por estas lágrimas…
I dreamt you came from the sky,
one cold Buenos Aires night
clad in shining blue and angel’s halo-gold.
A homunculus: a week out of the womb
and you were already sky-blue thunder
dashing across stadia, scoring again
and again
and again.
Sky-kite, too good to be a man,
just a legend in black and white.
Your glory irreplicable, unforgettable,
your strength enough to grab both the Malvinas,
take ‘em back to Argentina
where they belong.
Each blade of grass blessed to be at your feet,
witness to the majesty that only you could provide
in that beautiful dribble.
eyes glued to the TV screen; how I wish I was there,
live, watching you in ‘86, screaming until
my lungs gave out. When I was little I watched
your goals every morning as a rite,
I went to La Bombonera and it trembled
as if you were still there, though it had been
decades since you last touched a ball.
I never got to watch you play, I was born
far too late in a far too cruel world.
Nonetheless to me you were forever in your prime.
my footsteps drawn on sand:
yours etched in never-forgetting stone,
crushing crystal rock with every step:
you walked on coals without a wince.
I followed your very being
as a matter of faith.
And when I heard you died,
I stepped out the shower
thinking,
El país se fue a la mierda:
River volvió a la Primera,
Cristina mató a Nisman,
el peso baja cada día
y encima Maradona se murió.
I never thought I’d see the day.
I never thought you were a mortal man,
nothing pains me more than thinking
of you convulsing in your deathbed,
Greek hero of legend brought back down
to the ground, I suppose it was God
who was jealous of you.
I look up to the sky and wonder
if you remember the time that you
held me by your side, just a snapshot
perhaps—but what I wouldn’t give to have it back.
I was born in your shadow, just a little
boy next to you on that empty night
on the Al-Wasl half-training ground
half-parking lot. Now I’m just a little girl
underneath your shadow cast from above.
Shrouded in darkness I write,
knowing that
my words can never do justice
to what you did for me.
I wish, Diego, that I could be like you—
holding a shattered world together
With charisma and a tricky little turn
slipping past worries and fears.
But I don’t know if I can.
Y espero que Argentina gane este mundial,
—ojalá gane Messi, así me mostrará
que por lo menos un tipo pudo llegar a la
altitud de Maradona.
Me gustaría saber si un ser humano lo puede hacer, nada más.