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Capybara Hot Springs

Untitled Document
translated from the Spanish by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo

The guest is a capybara in rubber boots

We wake up improvised at The Capybara Hot Springs and we walk to its gardens

I dipped my feet into its emptiness
the sea was vaporous and the boats were ants stranded in the air

Hold your breath, this is an instrument and this instrument plays the black music of the forest

Through the night in The Capybara Hot Springs, everything is continuous and intermittent; everything mends and cuts its ropes

At midnight the moon is the color of the zero that madly refracts like a beautiful glass

I saw invisible forms of life and distant forms of death in The Capybara Hot Springs while I cried

The paper that floats aimlessly on the water says that writing is that which comes from the water

that is why the rats stepped on the elephants at The Capybara Hot Springs

When I dived to the bottom the algae were bridges to other skies

Here, take this, a ring and an air bubble are pleasures unknown to intuition

I pinched my middle finger on my left foot and saw how the blood became solid like a brick and the concrete became sand again

In spite of our own selves

There exists nothing human that can scratch even the lowest sky

My two best friends will be married tomorrow, their orbits will be particles of dust and their dance will be the ether’s racket

We rent The Capybara Hot Springs to sing as we eat melons and celebrate the light with applause

In winter the wind’s sky bathes in itself and in spring it is the cycle of skin disrobing In the summer the arid crown burns
and the humidity of the nebulous beach of autumn

We dine on nostalgic crab and other shell fish with blue entrails

Among those invited to The Capybara Hot Springs are the tree’s branches that begin in the leaf of a thousand silences

We will give details of our relationship up to the greatest degree of cosmic unction

Here the times are born on the back of the mirror, and we discover new dorms in those spaces

The Capybara Hot Springs signify something like tassels of cracks and the immobility of a racket.

 


 

Capybara Hot Springs

 

El invitado es un capibara con botas de hule

Amanecimos improvisados en el Capibara Hot Springs y caminamos a sus jardines

Metí mis pies al vacío

el mar era vaporoso y los barcos eran hormigas varadas en el aire

Aguanta la respiración, ésta es un instrumento y el instrumento toca la música negra del bosque

Por la noche en el Capibara Hot Springs todo es continuo y todo es intermitente y todo zurce y corta sus lazos

A la media noche la luna es del color del cero que locamente refracta como un hermoso vidrio

Mientras lloraba en el Capibara Hot Springs vi invisibles formas de vida y lejanas formas de muerte

Dice el papel que naufraga en el agua que la escritura es lo que sale del agua

por eso en el Capibara Hot Springs los ratones pisaron a los elefantes

Cuando buceé hasta el fondo las algas son puentes hacia otro cielo

Toma, un anillo y una burbuja son placeres desconocidos para la intuición

Me pinché el dedo medio del pie izquierdo y vi como la sangre se hace sólida como un ladrillo y el concreto se hace otra vez arena

A pesar de nosotros mismos

No existe nada humano que rasque ni la planta del pie del cielo

Mañana se casarán mis dos mejores amigos, sus órbitas son partículas de polvo y su danza es la algarabía del éter

Rentamos el Capibara Hot Springs para cantar comiendo melones y a la luz celebrar con aplausos

En invierno el ciclo del viento se baña en sí mismo y en primavera es el ciclo de las pieles que se desnudan

En el verano arde la árida corona
y la humedad de la nebulosa playa de otoño

Cenaremos cangrejo nostálgico y demás formas de vida con caparazón y entrañas azules

Entre los invitados a Capibara Hot Springs están las ramas del árbol que comienza en la hoja de mil silencios

Daremos detalles de nuestra relación hasta el grado máximo de la unción cósmica

Aquí los tiempos nacen en reverso del espejo, descubrimos nuevos dormitorios en esos espacios

Capibara Hot Springs significa algo como borlas de chasquido y la inmovilidad de un estruendo.

Copyright © 2025 by Yaxkin Melchy Ramos. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 6, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.

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Yaxkin Melchy Ramos

Yaxkin Melchy Ramos
Photo credit: Asahiko Omiya
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About Poem-a-Day

Poem-a-Day is the original and only daily digital poetry series featuring over 250 new, previously unpublished poems by today’s talented poets each year. Randall Mann is the Guest Editor of August. Read or listen to a Q&A with Mann about his curatorial process, and learn more about the 2025 Guest Editors. Support Poem-a-Day.  

If you have any questions about Poem-a-Day, visit our Poem-a-Day FAQ.

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