Poemes de l´alquimista 1936-1950

I gave my heart to a fallen woman.
It was rotting in my hands. Who would have wanted it?
At trash dumps an old discarded shoe
attracts us the same and seems a partly hidden treasure.

All refined young girls that wander around me
haven’t had the strength to give me the comfort
that an embrace gives, because men don’t cry
with their eyes, they cry with their sex and it’s sad to cry alone.

I want all my relatives and female friends to know:
Josep Palau is no angel nor is he a role model.
If they had a pretty image of me,
now I offer them the naked truth.

I want no more fiction in my life.
That masquerade has lasted far too long.
Since you are disgusted by my festering wound
I leave my shoe on the junk heap.

Josep Palau i Fabre, The shoe
. ABRAMS, Sam (ed.) Five Faces. Barcelona: Institut d’Estudis Nord-Americans, 1994, p. 15.