2.19.2012

hilada como he(m)bra

sabes a mujer de perfil emboscada por la luz que tintinea el timbre que anuncia la entrada del morbo aliento que seduce el pecadillo de carne que te entrego en platillo plateado pulido frotado por el estropajo inalámbrico y suelto de tu pubis quieto que aspira el canto de las sirenas estériles que se embarcan en aventuras sutiles de seda plomo al fondo del arrecife caen aleteadas por el cacique destino de ser mitad esto y mitad lo otro como un centauro listo al duelo animalada que recalca tu ojo en descenso por el vientre que rajó el bisturí y si te he visto ya no te vi delicada monarca saltamontes grillo espejo de sal ven posa agarra el momento que se nos va dispuesto al presupuesto gastado abonado y sabes a mujer aunque infiel leal aunque fugaz siempre presente deambulando con el polvo que se eleva de la hoguera encenizado por la comezón de la llama que grita aúlla en tu garganta hilada hembra a hembra como hebra de mi peso isleño devaluado al pasado               

© om ulloa 



English translation by Mary Hawley  
(in After Hours #24, Winter 2012, featuring Chicago Latino Writers, Special Editor, Mary Hawley)


woman (spun) as thread

you taste of a woman in profile ambushed by light that jingles a bell to signal the arrival of the sickly breath that seduces the minced flesh I give you on a polished silver-plated platter burnished by the soft wireless brush of your quiet pubis that the song of the sterile mermaids aspires to as they set off on subtle adventures of lead-gray silk at the bottom of a reef and fall fluttering before the despot destiny of being half this half that as a centaur braced for winged bestial grief brims in your eye descending along the womb slit by the scalpel and if I have seen you I did not see you as a delicate monarch butterfly grasshopper cricket mirror of salt come rest here seize the moment already passing us psyched for the budget blown on credit and you taste of a woman though fickle loyal fleeting but present roaming in the dust rising from the bonfire burnt to ash by the longing flame that howls in your throat spun woman to woman like a thread in my island currency devalued to the past


Read on 2/19/12 by Mary Hawley in omu's absentia during After Hours' presentation, followed by reading by Jorge Frisancho, Peruvian poet
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