Thirst
I see a chase, a trail of viscera.
Even in this museum, there are runaway birds, and their
chirping encircles the place with fragments of their escape.
In the painting, the horses rupture with thirst,
and the hunt clots before my eyes.
It isn’t night, but my hands are ripe for sleep.
The world I roam has turned its face to yours.
This is the hour when I remember the teeth I didn't leave in your neck.
And how I was devoured by what didn’t happen:
because I'm your page, because my back is the back of your hand.
On my forehead, they run through forests of matchheads
that singe the fingertips of the innocent.
In the pond the moon freezes
to be reclaimed as a coin.
This flight song costs a bag of pennies.
The runaways would pay with their bodies
to leave this circle.
Even the Milky Way is a canary cage. Light also imprisons
by altering the order of objects in my cell.
There are words that would beat streams, and
your rivers would revive my throat.
Thirst is still in the picture.
There are still stones,
pebbles that frazzle streets of
lost coins.
Across the table, I stare at the edifice
of murmurs bound in the space
between your eyebrows and bangs.
In the kitchen, steam from a warming stew blurs your face.
In the song soon to exist, the lamb boils.
Sed
Veo una cacería, un rastro de órganos.
Aún en este museo hay pájaros que huyen y su chirrido ronda el espacio escribiendo fragmentos de su fuga.
La sed revienta a los caballos
y la persecución se coagula en la pintura que miro.
Todavía no es de noche y ya tengo las manos preparadas para el sueño.
El mundo en el que me desplazo, ha vuelto su cara hacia la tuya.
Es la hora en que recuerdo los dientes que no perdí en tu cuello.
En que recuerdo cómo lo que no ha ocurrido me ha devorado:
que soy tu página, que mi espalda es el dorso de tu mano.
En mi frente la fuga avanza por bosques de cerillas
quemando las puntas de dedos inocentes.
En el estanque se congela la luna
hasta recuperar su condición de moneda.
La canción de la fuga cuesta un saco de centavos.
Los que huyen pagarían con sus órganos
por salir de este círculo.
Hasta la Vía Láctea es jaula de canarios. También la luz encierra
al disponer el orden de los objetos de mi celda.
Hay palabras que derrotarían cauces
y mi garganta sería resucitada por tus ríos.
La sed sigue en el cuadro.
Siguen las piedras que se raspan en calles de monedas perdidas.
A través de la mesa miro el edificio
de murmuraciones reunidas en el mínimo espacio
que hay entre tu ceño y tu fleco.
En la cocina se calienta un guisado que emborrona de vapor tu cara.
En la canción que aún no existe hierve el cordero.
Michelle Gil-Montero is a poet and translator of contemporary Latin American poetry. She has several book translations, including most recently,
This Blue Novel by Valerie Mejer Caso (Action Books, 2015), which was longlisted for the National Translation Award, and Maria Negroni’s lyric novel,
The Annunciation (coming from Action Books in 2018). She has published the chapbook
Attached Houses (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2013), and her recent poems appear in
Seedings, Jubilat, Propeller and other magazines. Her work has been supported by the NEA, Howard Foundation, Pen/HEIM, and a Fulbright Scholar grant to Argentina.
Valerie Mejer Caso was born in Mexico City. Her complete collection in the US includes
Rain of the Future (Action Books, 2015) and
This Blue Novel (Action Books, 2016), longlisted for the best translated book of poetry by ALTA this 2016. She was the recipient of the Gerardo Diego International Poetry Award and of three grants given by The National Council for Culture and the Arts in Mexico. She has collaborated as a painter with poets Raúl Zurita, Forrest Gander and Antonio Prete and as a poet with photographers Dan Borris, Russel Monk and Barry Shapiro. She has been translated to English, Slovenian and Portuguese.