Is counting bodies the same
as counting rocks at night?
The focused gesture of counting
—piece by piece—
is it the same?
Is it the same
lantern light
that illuminates the body and the rock?
And if they’re thrown in the water,
do they sink the same?
And if one of the bodies does not appear,
is it the same absence that a rock leaves
when it’s not in its place?
Translated by Juan Afanador
Juan Afanador (Bogotá, Colombia, 1992) studied Anthropology with an emphasis on Creative Writing at the Universidad de los Andes. Some of his poems have been published in REC (the magazine of the students of Arts and Humanities of the Universidad de los Andes), Cabeza de gato, La raíz invertida, and Literariedad, as well as in Conexos magazine. He is founder, director, and member of the editorial board of the virtual poetry magazine Otro páramo.
I am withered grass / waving at the rain / but soon I feel the first drops / falling on the fields / Let this water soak me!
…If Argentine criticism ever styled itself with a relaxed bitterness, at any time—the Contorno years are the obligatory example—then its defining characteristic in the first two decades of the twenty-first…
My attention / steps down from its center / like an oil stain. // Contradictory hand: / while it feigns snatching / specific objects, / its fingers count digressions. /…
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