Definitive
Translated By Janet McAdams
Between my love and me three hundred nights
must be raised like three hundred walls
and the sea will be a witchery between us.
—Jorge Luis Borges, tr. by Janet McAdams
They’ll grow between you and me, the mountains,
wide and vast the river of stone
will drag its riverbed to opposite banks
will shipwreck boats and bridges.
The jungle
will rise above us and over this city
and leave in its paths only
the saddened echo of wind’s murmur.
For me you’ll be the long absence of an absence
For you I’ll be the surf of a sea dissolving.
Such yearning disguises my appearance
my pallid face watches you indifferently
my entreaty for a chance made of silence
night trapped among my vertebrae.
Immune like the fog
your voice will be the song of other travelers.
Translated from the Spanish
Notes:
Read the Spanish-language version, “Definitiva.”
Source: Poetry (March 2022)