Testament Scratched into a Water Station Barrel (Translation #11)
Humane Borders Water Station, 2004, by Delilah Montoya
Far from highways I flicker
gold the whispering
gasoline
if I pinch her nipples
too hard
no joy for her
no joy for me
so I practice on ticks
press them
just so so they give
but do not burst
beneath
my boots
thistle & puncture vine
a wild horse
asleep on all fours
its shadow still grazing
my lips
black meat
my tongue
black meat
in my backpack
sardine tins
saltines
& a few cough drops
the moon is my library
there’s a glacier
inside a grain of salt
do you understand
I’m sorry
my Albanian
isn’t very good
tremble
if God forgets you
tremble
if God
remembers you
out of clay I shape
sparrows
I glaze their bills & claws
I give them names
like gossamer
inglenook lagoon
she bathed
a trumpet
in milk
her tenderness acoustic
& plural
her pupils perched
in all that green
there’s nudity
around the corner
bones cracked
& iridescent
sometimes it rains so hard
even the moon
puts on
a raincoat
zinc razz zinc jazz
I notch my arms
I notch my thighs
five six days
I score
my skin but not
the back of my knees
two ovals
two portraits
my son at ten
his eyes ablaze
my son at one
his eyes shut
once
I dressed him in burlap
once bicycles
& marbles
once I tore rain
out of a parable
to strike down
his thirst
Copyright Credit: You can read the rest of the PINTURA : PALABRA portfolio in the March 2016 issue of Poetry. All images in this portfolio are courtesy of and with permission from the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Humane Borders Water Station by Delilah Montoya, gift of the Gilberto Cárdenas Latino Art Collection © 2004, Delilah Montoya.
Source: Poetry (March 2016)