In Buenos Aires I didn’t go
looking for my childhood home.
Why roam in streets whose names had changed,
disturb an old couple or a boy in bed
just to peer listlessly at the dark rooms
that even then seemed like gloomy holes
and in any case I can’t recall –
No, I renounce
nostalgia’s phony charms
to which so many succumb, mostly, it seems,
radio producers and mostly on holiday eves,
pulling out a forgotten hit
by a singer who had already quit
for Canada or went into real estate
and I discover with distaste
I haven’t forgotten a single line to a song
that once I sang with girlish zeal, unaware
of the lust that lurked behind each word
and I shiver to hear the clear voice singing along
that isn’t a specter of my childhood voice
for it is the voice of my daughter.