Green mountain, John Lyons (40 x 40 cm, oil on canvas)

What vanity to imagine
I can give you everything, love and happiness,
itineraries, music, toys.
It’s true this is how it is:
all I have, I give to you, it’s true,
but all I have is not enough for you
just as it’s not enough for you to give me
all you have.

So we’ll never be
the perfect couple, the picture postcard,
if we’re unable to accept
that only in arithmetic
does one plus one make two.
 
Scribbled on a scrap of paper
that merely says:
You were always my mirror,
What I mean is, I had to look at you to see myself.

And this fragment:

The slow machine of disaffection
the gears of reflux
bodies that abandon the pillows,
the sheets the kisses 

and standing before the mirror each one
self-questioning
no longer facing each other
no longer naked for each other
I no longer love you,
my love.

Julio Cortázar

(translation by John Lyons)