Blusas de volantes, acento de aldea,
apariencia delicada, voz de mosquiña morta,
But judge a book by her cover and you're in for it brother
I LOVE YOU
Early on, I noticed that you always say it
to each of your children
as you are getting off the phone with them
just as you never fail to say it
to me whenever we arrive at the end of a call.
It's all new to this only child.
I never heard my parents say it,
at least not on such a regular basis,
nor did it ever occur to me to miss it.
To say I love you pretty much every day
would have seemed strangely obvious,
like saying I'm looking at you
when you are standing there looking at someone.
If my parents had started saying it
a lot, I would have started to worry about them.
Of course, I always like hearing it from you.
That is never a cause for concern.
The problem is I now find myself saying it back
if only because just saying good-bye
then hanging up would make me seem discourteous.
But like Bartleby, I would prefer not to
say it so often, would prefer instead to save it
for special occasions, like shouting it out as I leaped
into the red mouth of a volcano
with you standing helplessly on the smoking rim,
or while we are desperately clasping hands
before our plane plunges into the Gulf of Mexico,
which are only two of the examples I had in mind,
but enough, as it turns out, to make me
want to say it to you right now
and what better place than in the final couplet
of a poem where, as every student knows, it really counts.
STRING TAIL
I used to have helpfulness tacked onto me
like a fake string tail on a mangled dog.
Wag, wag, wag went my nerveless appendage:
If I give you something, will you like me?
Watch me make you happy!
Here's a dry stick for you!
I fetched it off the ash heap.
Here's a dead bird.
There! Aren't I good?
Here's a gnawed bone,
it's my own,
I took it out of my arm.
Here's my heart, in a little pile of vomit.
Was it my fault you were angered
by the world news? That you bad-mouthed God
and banking, and in addition the weather?
That you sulked all day and were vicious
to your mirror, and also
to the girls at checkout counters?
That you thought sex was a mess?
I did my best. Wag, wag
went my tail of string.
Have some drool and mud!
Admire my goodwill! It clings
to the soles of your boots
like soft pink melting jelly.
Here, take it with you!
Take everything, and then I'm free;
I can run away. I'm blameless.
You can have the string tail, too.
EL RABO DE CUERDA
(traducido por María Pilar Somacarrera Íñigo)
Solía llevar mi generosidad pinchada
como el rabo de cuerda falso de un perro mutilado.
El apéndice sin nervios se menea y menea:
¿Si te doy algo, te gustaré entonces?
¡Mira cómo te hago feliz!
¡Aquí hay un palo para ti!
Lo cogí del montón de ceniza.
Aquí hay un pájaro muerto.
¡Lo ves!, ¿a que me porto bien?
Aquí hay un hueso roído,
es mío,
lo saqué de mi brazo.
Aquí, mi corazón, en un montoncito de vómito.
¿Fue culpa mía que te enfadaras
a causa del telediario? ¿Que echaras pestes de Dios
y los banqueros y, además, del tiempo?
¿Que estuvieras de mal humor todo el día y fueras cruel
con el espejo y también
con las muchachas de los mostradores?
¿Que pensaras que el sexo era un caos?
Lo he hecho lo mejor que he podido. Mi rabo de cuerda
seguía moviéndose y moviéndose.
¡Puedes babear, revolcarte en el lodo,
admirar mi buena voluntad! Se pega
a las suelas de tus botas
como gelatina rosa que se deshace.
¡Toma, llévatela!
Llévate todo y así seré libre,
podré escapar. No tengo culpa.
También puedes llevarte el rabo de cuerda.
En La puerta (2009)
HEART
Some people sell their blood. You sell your heart.
It was either that or the soul.
The hard part is getting the damn thing out.
A kind of twisting motion, like shucking an oyster,
your spine a wrist,
and then, hup! it's in your mouth.
You turn yourself partially inside out
like a sea anemone coughing a pebble.
There's a broken pop, the racket
of fish guts into a pail,
and there it is, a huge glistening deep-red clot
of the still-alive past, whole on the plate.
It gets passed around. It's slippery. It gets dropped,
but also tasted. Too coarse, says one. Too salty.
Too sour, says another, making a face.
Each one is an instant gourmet,
and you stand listening to all this
in the corner, like a newly hired waiter,
your diffident, skillful hand on the wound hidden
deep in your shirt and chest,
shyly, heartless.
CORAZÓN
(traducido por María Pilar Somacarrera Íñigo)
Algunos venden su sangre. Tú vendes el corazón.
La otra opción era vender el alma.
La parte más difícil es sacarte el maldito trasto.
Una especie de respingo, como al sacar una ostra de su valva,
tu espina, una muñeca,
y entonces, ¡alejop! ¡ya está en tu boca!
Una parte de ti se vuelve del revés
como una anémona marina escupiendo un guijarro.
Se oye un ¡plaf! interrumpido, el ruido
de tripas de pescado al caer en un cubo
y ahí está, un enorme y brillante coágulo de rojo intenso
del pasado aún vivo, que yace entero en el plato.
Se lo pasan de uno a otro. Es resbaladizo. Lo tiran,
pero también lo saborean. Demasiado áspero, dice alguien; demasiado salado.
Demasiado agrio, dice otro, poniendo mala cara.
Cada uno es un improvisado gourmet,
y tú estás escuchando todo
en una esquina, como un camarero inexperto,
con la mano, tímida y hábil, en la herida oculta
dentro de la camisa y el pecho,
abatido, sin corazón.
En La puerta (2009)
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| Source: https://gl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carballo |
