Roosevelt Island

Far too high: the sky
suspiciously white.
The day resists itself, the light flees, withdraws,
concealing what it finds. Everything looks
for its pretext in the memory of blood
the knees don’t know
the cadence of an island
that has no space for dust.
Nothing fits
the eye’s habit, but always
the chore is one alone:
the delayed apathy in the panes,
the insidious clarity
of an eternal midday that descends
over a world saturated
in signs
without mystery.

The Weight of the Other Island

Bodies, dominated by light,
withdraw in the presence of murdered skin.
Virgilio Piñera

If only I could talk of the cursed circumstance
beyond the epidermis
enumerate the exterior forms of misery
its altered proliferation in fire
test the mud that penetrates the ears
discover how to burst corneas and incinerate bodies
on a real island, its horrific circumstance.
How to palpate time among the debris of flesh
to no longer have the right to imagine
the circumstances while I sustain all the weight
of a non-existent island in the brain.

On Long Island the Dawn

This is dawn.
To say it another way
I’d have to have the forest’s syllables
its red sadness in my nerves its yoked
bitterness on my tongue.
Here there is no mother
who teaches us to love the names
and keeps the silence for us.
I don’t know how to say it any other way,
here, day breaks.

Translated by Rachel Whalen

Rachel Whalen (Buffalo, NY, 1997) is a teacher, poet and playwright. They graduated from Cornell University with a BA in English Literature and minors in Spanish and Public Service Studies. They are currently pursuing a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at New York University, with a concentration in poetry.