Writing for the first time in Galician, Miriam Reyes crosses the oblique, multi-dimensional passages between Galicia and Venezuela, where she migrated at the age of eight. In Sardine, Reyes’ frustrations using her maternal grandfather’s native tongue become confrontations with the insufficiency of language itself, as a means to contain experience, meaning, and the self. Sardine lives in the ruptures in space and time forced open by migration and offers memory as a yoke for our discordant selves.
***
as flores rebentan
eu estoupo
ti agromas
flowers burst
i explode
you sprout
pasaron moitas cousas dende que deixaron os teus
osiños na caixa aquela:
o primeiro que pasou foi o tempo
venceu o alugueiro da cavidade onde gardaron a caixa
a túa muller colleuna e levouna ao panteón dunha veciña
pasou tanto tempo que parecía distancia física
coma se marcharas alén da estratosfera
tardei en decatarme mais decateime:
o meu corpo é a cavidade que non precisas alugar
óllame / olla pra min
teño sardiñas nos beizos
paseos á beira do mar para ti
much has happened since they left your bones in that box:
the first thing that happened is time
the lease on the cavity where they kept the box expired
your wife took it to a neighbor’s graveyard
so much time had passed that it felt like physical distance
as if you’d gone beyond the stratosphere
it took me a while to realize it but i finally did:
my body is the cavity you don’t need to lease
look at me / look, at me
i have sardines on my lips
walks along the shore for you
ábsida aparello armazón de min
o que eu che ofrezo non cho ofreceu muller ningunha
e ofrézocho a gatiñas a granel a mares
gable grove growth—me, mine
what i offer you no other woman has
and i offer it felinely generously oceanically
falo de ti
mais son eu o suxeito
deste estudo / desta paixón
i speak about you
but i’m the subject
of this study / of this passion
ás veces detéñome
na metade desta linguaselvaescura onde te procuro
a gatiñas
que é o que espero recuperar?
como é que podo encontrar as palabras
se non sei en que buracos se esconden?
sometimes i stop
midway along this tonguedarkforest where I look for you
felinely
what do i hope to recover?
how can i find the words
if i don’t know which holes they hide in?
a:
destino distancia
a:
modo
sardiñas á prancha
rapaciña ao colo
on:
location contact
on:
mode
sardines on the grill
little girl on your lap
Translated by Laura Cesarco Eglin
from Sardine by Miriam Reyes, translation © Laura Cesarco Eglin (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2026)
