From “Burn the Losses”

By Antonio Gamoneda
Translated By Katherine M. Hedeen & Víctor Rodríguez Núñez

Translated from the Spanish

From the violent dampnesses, from

the places where residues

of storms and sobs intertwine

comes

this arterial sorrow, this memory

torn to pieces.

                        Still losing their minds

those mothers in my veins.





It was

the music mortal, the shriek

of the incessant horses, was

a funeral pavane at the time

of the bloodied cotton.



Was the declination of a thousand heads,

the gargoyle howling maternal, the circles

of the tormented hen.

Is still, once more, the lime, the bone

cold in our hands, the

dark police marrow.





Beneath the ant activity

there were eyelids and there was

water mortal in the ditches.



Still in my heart

there are ants.

Notes:

Read the translators' note by Katherine M. Hedeen and Víctor Rodríguez Núñez.

Source: Poetry (December 2024)