a night in d.f.

your mouth, in the dark-light of the statue of jose marti,
telling me that i have been hurtful and terrible
and i’m not sure why i wrapped my face in my hands,
head bowed,
the way they do in movies,
the women who cry resented or resentful
at having lost a loved one,
be it human or animal.
later we drank out of glass bottles
and i felt ashamed,
avoiding your eyes
like a child-lover
whose little box of important things
has been found at the bottom of a pile of books
and dumped out
and they realize that most of their belongings have become
other, more sinister objects
without their knowing,
like a loved one’s gift of a dead leaf
turned into a rusted bottle cap.

soon after waking, i am sad again

wanting only to walk alongside abandonment

for hours

watching as the doors around me close, slowly

hearing from far away a child’s voice calling out,

unanswered

and it will be raining

but only enough to notice it

the way that one notices that the coffee has gotten cold

after sitting out for some time

with unbitter resignation

at the everyday ruining of things

 

your tongue is only that-

muscle, tissue, nerves

a lump of flesh attached to the throat.

so why all these small insomnias

expending dark in the want of your mouth?

i left your imagined heart

and a thousand eyelashes plucked

before their time

on the windowsill.

there are feelings you keep

close to the bone,

that every so often break

against my awkward edges.

sometimes your mouth is a stone

and i have holes for eyes

and in those moments we are cutting our bare feet

on the outside of everything,

trying not to lose elbows and knees

in each other.

other times we are lying still

and the world is as big, or as small

as the collection of meteors

we watched die from the warm side of your bedroom window

or the space

between our open mouths in the dark.

“mouth,” you say
and the symbolic order falls
like a sphere of fruit grown too heavy
and i’m chewing on
pulp and the pithy edges of your ripening.

what is true
is so much more so
in your mouth.

Has visto
verdaderamente has visto
la nieve los astros los pasos afelpados de la brisa
Has tocado
de verdad has tocado
el plato el pan la cara de esa mujer que tanto amàs
Has vivido
como un golpe en la frente
el instante el jadeo la caìda la fuga
Has sabido
con cada poro de la piel sabido
que tus ojos tus manos tu sexo tu blando corazòn
habìa que tirarlos
habìa que llorarlos
habìa que inventarlos otra vez.

 

Have you seen

have you truly seen

the snow the stars the felt steps of the breeze

Have you touched

really have you touched

the plate the bread the face of that woman you love

so much

Have you lived

like a blow to the head

the flash the gasp the fall the flight

Have you known

known in every pore of your skin

how your eyes your hands your sex your soft heart

must be thrown away

must be wept away

must be invented all over again

 

-julio cortázar, “para leer en forma interrogativa”

 

 

“When she lay down I massaged her feet with mint oil and cut her toenails with silver scissors. I coiled her hair into living snakes and polished her teeth with my saliva.
I pierced her ears and filled them with diamonds. I dropped belladonna into her eyes.
When she was sick I wiped her fever with my own towels and when she cried I kept her tears in a Ming vase.
There was no separation between us. We rose in the morning and slept at night as twins do. We had four arms and four legs, and in the afternoons, when we read in the cool orchard, we did so sitting back to back.

I liked to feel the snake of her spine.

We kissed often, our mouths filling up with tongue and teeth and spit and blood where I bit her lower lip, and with my hands I held her against my hip bone.

We made love often, especially in the afternoons with the blinds half pulled and the cold flag floor against our bodies.

For eighteen years we lived alone in a windy castle and saw no one but each other. Then someone found us and then it was too late.

The man I married was a woman.

They came to burn her. I killed her with a single blow to the head before they reached the gates, and fled that place, and have come here now.

I still have a coil of her hair.”

jeanette winterson, sexing the cherry

cette nuit près de moi tu viendras t’étendre
oui je serai calme je saurai t’attendre
et pour que tu ne t’effarouches
vois je ne prend que ta bouche

suddenly i’ve lost

the edge of your cheek

in the beds we’ve shared like children,

oh how you turned

into me and over and away

i told you to leave

i shouted

i had spent all night vomiting and my face was paper dry

in the mirror i was shrinking

the ripening of the day fell against your hair

do you know, i needed you to stay

and i told you to leave

and i know i hurt you

but i would have liked you to scream,

to say NO, I WON’T

but you had to go, and you left

and that night i had a nightmare where i disassociated

and a monster as big as a building was chasing all of us

and when i woke up the world was so many things dropping one by one at my feet

and i hadn’t eaten in a week

dead cats were appearing on the street

i was saving egg shells for a project on decay

that i never ever started

Yo me haré millonario una noche
gracias a un truco que me permitirá fijar las imágenes
en un espejo cóncavo. O convexo.

Me parece que el éxito será completo
cuando logre inventar un ataúd de doble fondo
que permita al cadáver asomarse a otro mundo.

Ya me he quemado bastante las pestañas
en esta absurda carrera de caballos
en que los jinetes son arrojados de sus cabalgaduras
y van a caer entre los espectadores.

Justo es, entonces, que trate de crear algo
que me permita vivir holgadamente
o que por lo menos me permita morir.

Estoy seguro de que mis piernas tiemblan,
sueño que se me caen los dientes
y que llego tarde a unos funerales.

-nicanor parra, “madrigal”