Water’s Lubricious Edges
By Coral Bracho
Translated By Forrest Gander
Water of jellyfish,
lacteal, sinuous water,
water of lubricious borders; glassy thickness—Deliquescence
in delectable contours. Water—sumptuous water
of involution, of languor
in placid densities. Water,
water silken and plumbeous in opacity, in weight—Mercurial;
water in suspense, slow water. The algal bloom
brilliant—In the paps of pleasure. The algae, the
bracing vapour of its peak;
—across the arched silence, across isthmuses
of basalt; the algae, its habitual rub,
its slippage. Light water, fish water; the aura, the agate,
its luminous border-breakings; Fire trailing the fleeing
elk—around the ceiba tree, around the shoal of fish; flame
pulsing;
lynx water, sargo water (The sudden jasper). Luminescence
of jellyfish.
—Edge open, lipped; aura of lubricious borders,
its smoothness rocking, its nesting efflorescence; amphibious,
labile—Water, water silken
with voltaic charge; expectant. Water in suspense, slow water—The
lascivious luminescence
in its oily crossing,
over faulted basalt. —The slither of opal through the sheen,
through the interior flame. — Water
of jellyfish.
Soft, lustrous water;
traceless water; dense,
mercurial
its steely whiteness, its dissolution in graphite surges,
in burnished gloss; furtive, smooth. —Living water
upwelling ventral over dorsal, capsized bronze sun enfolding
—crystalline zinc, spouting water. Water of jellyfish, tactile water
fusing itself
to the unctuous indigo blue, to its reverberant honeycomb. Amianthus, ulva water
The catfish in its silt
—sucking; in the nutritious essence, in its delicate nectar; the aureous
reservoir, a limbo, transparentizes it. Light water, aura within amber
—graceful, anointed luminance; the tiger, its high tide
below the brittle shadow. Boundary water, eel water licking
its profile,
its nocturnal migration
—In silk matrices; in the sage. —Water
between the hake. Gravid water (—The calm pleasure
tepid; its iridescence)—Water
its borders
—Its shifting smoothness, its enchantment
with what is nubile,
cadenced. Water,
silky water of involution, of languor
in placid densities. Water, water; Its caress
—Otter water, fish water. Water
of jellyfish,
lacteal, sinuous water; Water,
Copyright Credit: Coral Bracho, "Water's Lubricious Edges" from Firefly Under the Tongue. Copyright © 2008 by Coral Bracho. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.