by Reina Maria Rodriguez (Cuba)
translated by Kristin Dykstra

The mahogany desk was swelling with termites
(like the piano),
the bones turning
brittle as they sank:
“The writer’s existence really depends
on a desk,” said Kafka.
I lost my desk many years ago.

The existence of music depends
on an instrument too:
“. . . We’ve got no music, we’ve got rain,”
he kept on shouting.
We’ve got no love letters
in that rounded “o” of
incorruptible desire,
its finishes assonated
by the woman who used to walk,
who used to play the piano,
who used to
trust.

from El piano, 2017

Sara Vanégas Coveña (Ecuador)
translated by Margaret Randall

1

the trees
fold themselves in silence
the birds — in shade
now — return to
their branches / your heart
looks in vain
for a place
to hide

2

the birds return
to the Angelus
in transparent evening
(my heart is just another bird
kneeling)

Sara Vanégas Coveña (Ecuador)
translated by Margaret Randall

The whole city awoke among gray and birds
projected its visions in every passageway
and collapsed in the puddle

who will rescue your image from the water?

by Raul Zurita (Chile)
translated by Margaret Randall

Cities of Water
to PW

A man in his death throes dreamed of you, a man
in the throes of death followed you.
One who wanted to die with you
when you desired death.
There is my body wrecked on the reefs
when drowning I saw you emerge and eternally
close and eternally far you were the beach
where I could not land.
All is pain in you.
I greet you then and greet the eternal that lives
in defeat, in what is forever shattered,
to the infinite rising from shipwrecks,
because if our lives were water, our misfortunes
were rocks.
It is not me but my countries that speak to you:
The sound of the ocean I evoke, the stars
in the cutout of night.
Brilliant with night your face rises
covering dawn. You open your eyelids
and millions of men awake,
catch their buses, go out,
cities of water in your eyes