Bauhaus1
At Bauhaus, the night is as long as a dream.
I dance amid a dark forest.
My steps sound like palms on a drum,
my movements replicate distant dances
although no one suspects it.
In the distance, the light of a cigarette signals someone is near.
Quickly, my body transforms into wings and air.
I have become light and invisible
and my presence irritates
like a dust particle in the eye
or a puff of air in the ear.
I insert myself in secrets,
I perch on the young faces,
on lips kissing,
but no one has felt the heat
or the crackle
of a tiny spark on their lips.
Music surrounds me again
and I keep dancing
dantesquely
alone,
happily,
in the thicket and the darkness.
Music Remains
Arms gliding
beyond the rhythm,
undulating
and short steps
spinning toward the origin.
The cutter turns
intermittently
with eyes,
rays of sun
feeling the gaze.
Booming,
strike from below
in storms
and the ax
on the trunk.
Far away,
wine is poured out
a waterfall springs up
and the sparks
recognize the face.
The chair
is a raft
moving
with the muddy
waves of the river.
The music
is now
trills,
shrieks
and howling wind.
Just Another Bovary
The light barely enters the kitchen window.
Two women look at one another,
amid the knife’s white noise
and the scent of recently roasted garlic.
While one woman speaks,
the other sees her words spinning
in a steady rhythm
and her gaze is lost.
The child who held her skirts
and cried has vanished.
She hears soft music
and a suitcase beside her.
Then come the boutiques
the scene full of
a slight fragrance,
a slice of summer.
The light bleeds through
the immense windows in unexpected curves,
while the ticket vibrates
and the skirt flies.
The parasol tassels tremor.
She runs to the edge,
the sea skims her feet
and she feels a shiver up her spine.
All at once,
the teakettle whistles
slashing eardrums
like a raptor’s shriek.
Now her gaze
recalls Emma’s
before clinging to the bottle
that hastened her departure.
Angular Imbalance
Eyes narrow
the meadow is greener
and the wind blows
in time with jasmine and roses.
I run at half speed:
time has stopped.
But,
opening my eyes
I perceive
once again
the storm
that pierces,
drop by drop,
in hexatonic scale
my warm stone
of understanding.
Camille Claudel
Anarchic bangs,
snaking locks.
Frank, melancholy gaze
that brushes against
unknown
marble and clay edges.
Camille,
I am beside your bathers,
under this great wave you sculpted.
The laughter, after diving in,
and the tumbling
have stopped.
My ghosts are on the summit
and they look at me lovingly,
but the kind sand
is so far away.
It is true, we are three
and we are holding hands.
Nonetheless,
the strength and direction
of the currents
move our dreams or nightmares
separately.
I have found balance in the chaos and
life continues along its orbit
because of a delicate gravitational pull.
But the resonance of past shipwrecks
and a gentle dissonance on fingertips
have made my mouth dry
and it is hard to adapt to a wave
that expands internally
and tries to thwart
every molecule of dew.
Nonetheless,
I see The Waltz, your figure
in this couple dancing on the edge of the abyss:
consonance of
movement
nostalgia,
magic
and insanity.
Then,
I remember it is possible
to lean into nothingness
not sensing the whisper
of a flower crouching between the rocks,
just its scent.
I see my face
submerged
in the deep mist
but I do not hear the song of the earth
only its pulsing.
Translated by Amy Olen
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
1 A famous dance club in Lima in the 1990s.
