Sunset Over Villa Ortuzar
Jorge Luis Borges

Evening like Doomsday.
The street's end opens like a wound on the sky.
Was the brightness burning far away a sunset or an angel?
Relentless, like a nightmare, the distance weighs on me.
The horizon is tormented by a wire fence.
The world is like something useless, thrown away.
It is still day in the sky, but night is lurking in the gullies.
All that is left of the light is in the blue-washed walls and in that flock of girls.
Now is it a tree or a god there, showing through the rusted gate?
So many terrains at once: the country, the sky, the threadbare outskirts.
There were treasures today: streets, whetted sunset, the daze of evening.
Far from here, I shall sink back to my poverty.