Your last name lends itself
to jokes of the kind that Cubans
are masters of
but you, luckily,
are the opposite
of your last name,
the jokes,
and what’s more important,
everything that smells of dogma,
eternal socialisms
and redundant death,
collecting the signatures
that will unveil
the tomorrow
that won’t be long.
—
Translator’s note: Payá sounds like “pa’llá” which is a very Cuban contraction of “para allá,” and is part of the phrase “pa’llá y pa’cá (para acá)” which translates as “coming and going.” A Miami based radio personality who opposed Payá used the phrase “Ni pa’llá ni pa’cá” (neither coming nor going) to refer to him and the Varela Project, which Payá founded, led and gathered signatures for.
—
From the digital independent magazine Voces (Voices) No. 16, which is an issue in tribute to Oswaldo Payá
