*
Under the light
our skin
is lit up gold
like the eye of a jaguar
who reveals the secret
of the rainbow in his pupil
and succumbs to the brightness
of signs
In this part of the world
it is always a comet
*
Lightning bolts
and their storm
flashes in the darkness
The beautiful dead night
burns
and your skin so smoky
in this crackle of burning trees
*
The stars pointed to the killing
like guardians of our secret
but it was late and it was mist
burns and boats forecast to surface
At the next blink of waves
wakes fallen embers
lit up the sky like lightning
that pauses before sending branches
into the perpetual darkness of its vault
From the sky fell splinters
and ashes
and our naked bodies
were dressed in the guts of the ocean
radiating our eyelids
up to the question
We knew ourselves
scattered islands under gods
impossible to name
No future And now what?
Now every eye does its own business
*
We rehearse a scene of uproar
to enrage the mountain
with masks that cover
garbs skins of fierce wild cats
and our hearts at the center
A jungle geography
where we train arrows and choreographies
for our sentinels
After that
the nights were nothing more
than the invention of the origin
a bundle of deaths under the sky
and perhaps
a little mezcal añejo
born from the first tree
Before the horror we were alive
We all wanted to be the sun
*
Crossdressed
at the point of peyote
some Women of the East
shot up muday
in the delirium of defeat
P u m a g i r l s
D e e r g i r l s
dancing what’s left of life
On this mass of earth
what else to do?
No one can accept the end
Tomorrow we will return to the offerings
And I will say:
this is my body
this is my blood
this is my promise to you
I will twist enemy necks
stomp on skulls
honor the unspeakable fiction
we will never write
Before I see their heads piled on the field
I will burst through yanaconas
That will be my last celebration
*
Kneeling before you
Mother Volcano
I light the fire
and the mountain is lit
I smear my forehead
with the lime of your ash
I braid my hair
with sprigs of mint
and repeat:
This I am
a final shot
Poems from Guerra Florida [Flower war], Del Aire Editores, 2018
Curated and selected by Paula Miranda and Andrea Vargas
Translated by Arthur Dixon
