Facing North
An entire life
buried in the heat of
coming back and
finding a being that lives,
breathes, waits for
me, is my other half.
When the birds were
eating from my hand and
I could feel that
they were of flesh,
with blood beating
through their bewitched
bodies.
And I didn’t care
about the cold weather because
the mornings were
hot, and it felt like we were
living in the
nineteenth century, in the emptiness, in the humidity.
Because of the
kisses everyone else gave
each other, and the
rapes, which were
games. Not real,
not martyrs.
We lived in a
horrid building, but I
didn’t see its
ugliness, because it was
surrounded by
greenery, and it was lived in.
The tropics were a
dream, an amulet.
Any body a
blessing, the
emotions rays that
like lizard
tongues brought
together the surfaces of stigmata.
I thanked the
heavens for a window, I drank
that which purifies
like a gift: The pole,
falling, and
dismantled. The wind
erasing the shapes.
I washed myself
with bleach. I never got around
to washing the
sheets, I wanted them to be white
too so I could
dream that life was a
dream. I robbed an
elderly woman, to put dinner
on the table. That
night, in my head I
composed odes to
beauty and I wanted
to throw myself
into the lake of fever. At the
party there was a
party and you could hear screams,
a party of whales,
with wreathes
on the door. And
the two of us, beyond
mute, were opening
holes in another wall.
But love arrived
and we rented a car
to travel to the
Magic Kingdom.
I named the desert
and the palm trees
Mickey Mouse. But
the warning for
deadly hurricanes
went off, and I left
to take cover
somewhere where there weren’t
any sirens. To the
hotel, to seclusion, to
transmutation in
voyage.
Writing the prayer
for chaos down
on a piece of
paper: If I die, let them bury me
alive, and they
shall give him the portion
of my heart, but
they shouldn’t revive me.
It’s just a lie,
all that we see.
And details.
Sometimes I freeze,
or imagine
everything that happens inside
my body as caverns.
Or the encounters
are enchantments
and the apparitions
virgins or
detachment of the
flesh
of others.
I never got to see
an animal, so I don’t know.
It’s asphyxiation,
it’s the flicker
of hope that faith
will come.
About the AuthorCecilia Pavón was born in Mendoza, Argentina, in 1973. She
has lived in Buenos Aires since 1992. She holds a B.A. in Literature from the
University of Buenos Aires. In 2012, she published her collected poetry
in Un hotel con mi nombre (A Hotel With My Name). Her
other publications include 27 poemas con nombres de persona (2010),
the ebook Once Sur (2012), and the short-story
collection Los sueños no tienen copyright (2010). She has two
forthcoming translations into English to be published in 2015: Belleza y Felicidad (Sand Paper Press)
and A Hotel With my Name (Scrambler
Books).
About the TranslatorJacob Steinberg was born in Stony Brook, New York, in 1989.
He has published the full-length poetry collections Magulladón (2012), Ante ti se
arrodilla mi silencio (2013), and Before
You Kneels My Silence (2014). As a translator he has worked with Cecilia
Pavón, CAConrad, and Mario Bellatin, among others. He currently resides in New
York.
