We all receive the invitation.
We have lived on the horizon for so long,
coasts no longer know our flags.
They buried us where they bury ships,
Commonwealth projects, and literary whales,
which represent no threat.
Someday, a great writer will claim
we were an idea the breadth of an ocean
and, being dead, we will agree.
Translated from the Spanish by the author
Notes:
Read the Spanish-language original by Raquel Salas Rivera, “Todes recibimos la invitación.”
Source: Poetry (November 2022)