Victor Hugo Limón
three poems
translated by Mark Weiss
Farewell
I see a woman emerge from the sea.
She lights a cigarette.
Where she could have found a kingdom
she scatters ashes.
On the sand the footprints
end at a jade dress,
hair undulant as a jellyfish.
She tells me: "To live in the sea
one must float like the dead."
The radio announces:
"Tomorrow will be clear
again."
Baskets and Dates
The earth brings itself forth in my lips’
thirst,
undulating prairie
in the stinging of my eyes.
The woman I loved
closing her eyes
has bid me farewell.
Her face is covered with sand
in the cool air of the mountains
like an hourglass
that warns of time passed.
An elderly woman
weaves baskets
gathers dates,
recounts the story of the couple in the mountains:
"She evaporated into the world,
he seeks to extinguish melancholy
in the desert."
Cool winter descends on the desert.
Glancing down at the page,
I look for the dot
that will show me your face.
Playing Dominoes
My father
returns to the past by way of words.
Scarred
like a tree, at his step
leaves fall, his shadow falls with every gust of
wind.
Once the family would gather,
sun transforming roofs and walls,
the light in the dining room
sweet to taste, and in a dance of hands
the dominoes revolved,
my father
and the rest of us
awaiting our destiny.
Today the family gathers again,
Aunt Alicia and my grandparents gone,
a festive meal on the table
colors spilling in all directions;
my father
in the midst of the celebration chooses
which bread to take,
memories silence him,
rolling his eyes and moving his tongue he tests
his pride as if testing a coin.
I see in his eyes a heart that knows farewells,
I see his hands that have touched
only what time has touched,
I see myself come forth from him
and return, carrying this heart.
Today we won’t argue,
because the thousand nights imprisoned beneath his
roof
the thousand days beneath his shadow
the violence the rage
are suffocated by the weight of love.
In this place, with these people, he will return to his
childhood.
I will silence my accusations and patiently
place the dominoes on the table
while we await our destiny.
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