Toward the Island
translated from the Spanish by Eloisa Amezcua and Pablo Medina
It smells of forest and it smells of sea.
Look how the vulture rises
on the ladder of the winds.
It smells of the woman who loved you
between sheets of abandon,
wrapped and beautiful, lethal as a knife.
Look how the lady with the parasol passes.
On the island, the cold moon is a mirror
of a snowfall at the end of the world,
so far from your womb,
so close to disdain.
The voice of no one follows you.
The island is a stretch of fragments:
wave, hill, song, ghost.
Hacia la isla
Huele a bosque y huele a mar.
Mira como sube la tiñosa
por la escala de los vientos.
Huele a la mujer que te amó
entre las sábanas del desparpajo,
enclaustrada y bella, letal como navaja.
Mira como pasa la señora con sombrilla.
En la isla la luna fría es el espejo
de una nieve de fin de mundo,
tan lejos de tu vientre,
tan cerca del desdén.
La voz de nadie te persigue.
La isla es un trecho de fragmentos:
ola, monte, canto, espanto.
Copyright © 2018 Pablo Medina and Eloisa Amezcua. This poem and translation originally appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review. Used with permission of the author.