from The Lower Chamber
My day won’t change
My life won’t change
Until
I pull back my hair
You give me a brief kiss on the brow
and say: it’s over
Then you the last
may close my eyes
It’s all the same
Help me to bury myself
One shouldn’t ask
One shouldn’t ask the one who’s leaving
It’s simple:
one will ask and remain without it
One can’t ask
There’s nothing to ask for
The little school
Teaching the children
Everything should be sought without words
Everything should be demanded
in silence
The only dignity
Watch your eyes
betrayal
Watch out
She looked like a young boy
Dance for the big toe of the right foot
La mer
I felt bad
Bad?
Half-open mouth
Burgundy
S p r e a d i t o u t
There was blood
There was
blood
You weren’t going to kill me
We weren’t going to die
Dawn
would come
Coffee and milk for the little pimp
That morning he would lose his fortune
Dawn of a cold day the sirens’ eyes
like amber
and the pebbles
and the fortune
the conquerors came
in galleys
Sister Ana, sister Ana
tell me what you see
A single shadow
A single shadow
A single long shadow
I’ll see her skin in the galleys
her hands
her voice I’ll hear
her eyes
letters
like hair
like a mouth half open
Burgundy
The foreigner came
in galleys
In ships
The foreigner leaves
Sister Ana, sister Ana
tell me what you see
Men like ants in the woods
ta ta
ra ta ta…
A hum
A hum of bees
It doesn’t change me
What calls doesn’t change me
The leaves pressed between the pages
won’t change me
dry
green
yellow
Mmmmmmosssssssssssssssssss!
Albertine’s dream like a silk worm
It’s not the same dog that eats me in its mouth grinds
our bones
STERNUM
My hand is cupped and filled
I fill you
I tire you
I sate you
I bore you
I bore myself too
We’ve been since long ago coming in ships and saying
The-same-things
the girl
love and hate
I suffer
we are crucified
The foolish plot:
a piece of wood
set upon
another piece of wood
The intersection:
Nobody blinded the Minotaur
A single shadow
We’ve been calling Nobody for a long time
a single shadow
I’ll thread beads
I’ll try pottery
I’ll design bridges
I’ll build walls
I’ll tie sneakers
I’ll do the wash in the river
There was
your face in the galleys
from Floating Lanterns
Would love be to the body
what contemplation is to the soul?
That stillness?
That intuition
of every thing at an instant?
That bolt of lightning in which
the real is made evident
in accord with its echo?
The elusive suspension
that perceives and
comprehends everything?
Is that the pause in the flow of time
the only true home and homeland?
Home and homeland:
This is what I call to possess each other,
as you look at each other and see your own reflection
in trustworthy and serene
water.
Body of light
Body of goodness
Hyperbolic petal rowing
between one shore and the other.
And if there are not two shores?
If all is one?
If there are not two or one
but a glissando of mirrors
toward and from the light —or the mire?
Each station with its diligent demiurge
more confused than cruel
deadened, sunken
in the excess
of a kingdom he ignores and that ignores him.
Regent, prince and child —all at once,
all untimely.
And if it were nothing more
than a voyage
through the frozen ages of that prince
toward the light —or the mire?
(translated from the Spanish by Anna Deeny)
Mercedes Roffé is an Argentine poet. Her books have been translated and published in Italy, France, Romania, England, Canada, Brazil, and the United States. They include Floating Lanterns, translated by Anna Deeny (Shearsman Books, 2015) and Ghost Opera, translated by Judith Filc (co-im-press, 2017). In 2016, her Definiciones Mayas was listed by the Spanish newspaper, El País, as one of the 100 best books published in Spanish in the past twenty-five years. Roffé is the founding editor of Ediciones Pen Press. She lives in New York City.
