My friend,El Chino,once wrote about how women sitand walkafter they’ve made love.We never got to argue about itbecause he died like an idiotof a heart attack treated with chamomile tea.Had we had the chance,I’d have told him that the only thing good about making loveis men who ejaculatewithout bitterness,without dread.And that after doing it,no one wants to sit downor walk.I named an old palm treeplanted near the pool at my apartment after him.Every time I take a drinkand I greet him,he shakes his leaves,a sign that he’s furious.He told me once:life’s a massive happinessor a massive outrage.I’m true to my childhood dreams.I believe in what I do,what my friends do,and what everyone like me does.Sometimes we stay up togethervery latetalking about the worms that hound himand the wicked heat he feels all dayin that aridity and sand.He hasn’t changed:hungry,dispossessed,he can sit down and befriend Mallarmé.Lautréamont joined us one nightand said El Chino was right:poetry should be made by all.And then the others came:Rubén Darío leading Nicaragua,Omar Khayyam with his parties,Paul Éluard uniting lovers.Together,we dipped El Chino in the pool, under a full moon,and he was contentlike when he had a river,some birds,a kite.Now he’s worked up again,because they bring him flowerswhile he’s trying to scare off cockroaches.He wanted to be interred in Helsinki,under eternal snow.He went around the world,passing through London where a woman waited for him,and on his way back,he drank chamomile tea.He,who loved the shadows so much,could no longer stay up all night.Lucid and very hypocritical,he had a horrible fear of dying in bed.I knowbecause he wrote me a notethat the line he liked most was David Cooper’s:a bed is the laboratory of love and dreams.