Night Is Coming On
![Willendorf Venus Natural History Museum, Vienna, Austria. © Jorge Royan / http://www.royan.com.ar / CC BY-SA 3.0](https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/sites/default/files/2016/september/vienna-willendorf-venus-natural-history-museum-6190.jpg)
Night is coming on.
Pirate flags,
family pictures,
superhero figures
and the image of Venus de Willendorf
on the scale of 1:1
in the shadows.
The book spines blur.
Night is an enormous widow
covering the windows of the salon.
Her black, silent weeping
inundates the library.
Day is a cadaver that will quickly turn into dust
and become lost among the shadows.
Translated by Dick Gerdes
Editorial Note: For more, read “Urban Reality and Classical Antiquity: A Conversation with Luis Alberto de Cuenca.”