Jorgenrique Adoum (Ecuador)
translated by Katherine M. Hedeen & Víctor Rodríguez Núñez

When I found out
(because I’m like that, someone who gets up
kicking and screaming, disinterring, puts on the body
left on the chair, the hope that didn’t
fit anymore like a bad set of false teeth, and leaves,
actually gets taken out, to see how go
the outthere days, how the insolent dictator
statue is, helmet up and helmet
down, carddeck animal, turning bad
bitch on his own account, bad communion host in the smitten
summer, bad stone in his dew, his memory,
just so the exile trips, scarcely
falling, barely, sees he’s mistaken,
that he’s wrong in his roots)
I woke up
afraid.
Where am I, I cried out, after
so much effort, how much longer
is it still before, what’s my name
then, why do I have a name.
(Because everything
smelled like always, old suffering, worthless
yesterday death, absurd
where remains linger of the cobwebbed
dinner, and still, still you’ve got to set
the table, waiters, lazy, customary
prophets, to put some backbone into the bread,
serve the poor’s breakfast, without so much
returning to today, mistaken date, I mean,
and so many centuries of not washing the napkin.)

And I couldn’t keep unlearning from utter
story and I couldn’t tighten the heartbelt
so it might hold on. It’s better we left,
my neighbor and me, to remake what’s broken, clothes,
to make ready the verges.
I still haven’t gone back
and I don’t know when I’ll die again: I haven’t got the time.

Natasha Felix (Brazil)
translated by Laura Cesarco Eglin

If I burst out laughing, it’s because I hear a good joke. If I have
insomnia, it’s because I calculate the next debts. If I cry, it’s
because I deliver my son to the dust. If I’m Kianda, it’s because I
choose the right heads. If the police arrive, it’s because I have to
cover your eyes. While I wait for them to go by, my tongue does
three rounds. Then, the party, maybe. If I said we never had to
dance, it’s because I lied. If they approach — slowly, their mouths
full of teeth, if they come close, crushing but not enough, it’s
because I can take my hands from your eyes. I don’t uncover. I let
the sweat run.

by Ernesto Cardenal (Nicaragua)
translated by Margaret Randall

I was in my hammock
looking at the white wall
thinking about who knows what
and suddenly a black dot
and suddenly a brilliant salamander
coming from who knows where
ran over to it
traveled the vertical wall as if it were flat ground
erased the black dot
and disappeared.
I liked that.
It ate it like I eat
like we all eat, and how
Christ ate at joyous feasts with fishermen
and then offered himself as food.
I liked it.
In the cosmos everything is food.
And only the white wall remains.

by Magda Portal (Peru)
translated by Kathleen Weaver

Fear of speech fear of what might overflow in an uncontainable
river of sweet strange words sometimes with the flavor of salt
and iodine profound fragrances or sinister and terrible as
newly–shed blood others aye like the night–chiseling cry of
entrance itself

But stone silence sealed you while in your eyes your ears your
heart seethes a vast tumult of words hitherto unheard music
hellish tonalities tremolos of death

Can no other mouth no other hands be given you no other feet
with which to walk the world a new Niobe goaded by all desires
your maddened voice cascades in song a tale of grief and
wrecked hope

Your far eyes reflect the sun the shimmering golds of late
afternoon