In heaven, Goya’s no longer deaf. He hears
Everything Velázquez tells him when they sit
Together in one of those gardens the angels
Maintain for the blessed who care more
For conversation and deep-colored roses
Than for divinity. Velázquez is sad.
There are no dogs to paint or war horses
Or deer with magnificent antlers.
He tells Goya, “Only you can understand me.”
Eternity is a difficult adjustment
For beings who’re used to days and nights,
Beginnings, endings. Velázquez
Says, “What I painted is fixed in time,
An Infanta who will never age, royalty
On horseback, dwarves who saw everything
And said nothing.” Goya: “My portrait
Of Altamira’s red-suited child, the cats ready
To leap on his birds—time runs like water
Through our hands. Only the living
Have such moments. In this garden, roses
Never wilt, and weather’s neither too
Cool nor too hot.” An angel, who’s been
Adjusting God’s voluminous robes,
Flies past, but not a leaf sways from
The pulsing of his wings. “My friend,”
Says Velasquez, “sometimes I do not
Believe we are in heaven.”
George Franklin is the author of eight poetry collections, including the recent A Man Made of Stories,and a book of essays, Poetry & Pigeons: Short Essays on Writing (both Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2025). Individual poems have been published in Solstice, Nimrod, Rattle, New Ohio Review, and ONE ART, among others. He practices law in Miami, is a translation editor for Cagibi, teaches poetry classes in Florida prisons, and co-translated, along with the author, Ximena Gómez’s Último día/Last Day.
