I woke up myopic, feverish, with sea-rain on the window, the remaining rays of a seraph’s halo prickling my eyebrows, and sticky threads tugging my leg. My legs and knees and the floorboards all creaking and trying to sing a couple songs that mimic the midday TV. The sea was still, the sky peaceful, in the air there was a tunnel counting backwards to the paths not taken. An island, in both and neither of us, floated in between. Within him and me the molle trees were going to weep their fruits.
I don’t know how to write this; another month in his quicksand palm, where I lie freely, or would if I could. I think of summer’s end, of my grandmother teaching my mother to dry figs in the sun, and me sitting by the window wishing literature would die or kill me or both. I didn’t understand then that pistols aren’t loaded with words. It doesn’t matter. The sand exfoliates my pores and crystallizes on my eyelashes.
*
Husbands shouldn’t leave their wives or, if anything, their fingerprints shouldn’t linger with remorse. She told me you’re a grown man now, but I still walk with my shoelaces untied and greet the cashier blushing purple. While she keeps me company, what have I done besides masturbate to the sound of silence and enjoy a table set for one. Her hands swim in me and spawn catastrophic earthquakes. The lights in my apartment go out. Perhaps in the distance waves sweep across the sand, or someone walks barefoot on the floor above.
*
When the power returns, I’m half naked in a classroom and nobody cares. This I can sense—like the legs of a spider stumbling over body hair, a bride’s veil brushing her eyelashes, a snotty mass tickling the roof of a mouth. All the school kids staring at how I’m dressed while I sit still, deliriously screaming, reading Neruda, summoning the dead man on an oak table dragged into the room by a few women, and him embalmed, embalmed stiff with his brains in his hands reciting his verse, and one maybe two kids with their mouths agape, the rest yawning.
I don’t know how to write this; another month in his quicksand palm, where I lie freely, or would if I could. I think of summer’s end, of my grandmother teaching my mother to dry figs in the sun, and me sitting by the window wishing literature would die or kill me or both. I didn’t understand then that pistols aren’t loaded with words. It doesn’t matter. The sand exfoliates my pores and crystallizes on my eyelashes.
*
Husbands shouldn’t leave their wives or, if anything, their fingerprints shouldn’t linger with remorse. She told me you’re a grown man now, but I still walk with my shoelaces untied and greet the cashier blushing purple. While she keeps me company, what have I done besides masturbate to the sound of silence and enjoy a table set for one. Her hands swim in me and spawn catastrophic earthquakes. The lights in my apartment go out. Perhaps in the distance waves sweep across the sand, or someone walks barefoot on the floor above.
*
When the power returns, I’m half naked in a classroom and nobody cares. This I can sense—like the legs of a spider stumbling over body hair, a bride’s veil brushing her eyelashes, a snotty mass tickling the roof of a mouth. All the school kids staring at how I’m dressed while I sit still, deliriously screaming, reading Neruda, summoning the dead man on an oak table dragged into the room by a few women, and him embalmed, embalmed stiff with his brains in his hands reciting his verse, and one maybe two kids with their mouths agape, the rest yawning.
Tres EnsayosDesperté miope en fiebre y lluvia marina en la ventana. Con los restos de halo del serafín molestándome las cejas y hebras pegajosas tironeándome la pierna. Las piernas, las rodillas y el piso de tabla todos crujiendo y tratando de cantar un par de canciones que imiten una tele al mediodía. Estaba el mar tranquilo, en paz el cielo, había en el aire un túnel de la cuenta regresiva a los pasos sin dar, una isla flotaba entre los dos, en los dos y en ninguno, en él y en mi los molles iban a llorar sus frutos.
No sé cómo escribir esto; otro mes en su palma arena movediza, donde me acuesto libre o me acostaría libre si pudiera. Pienso en el fin de verano en mi abuela enseñándole a mi mamá a secar higos al sol y yo sentado en la ventana deseando que la literatura muriera o que me matara o las dos. Aún no sabía que las pistolas no las cargan las palabras, da lo mismo, la arena me exfolia los poros y se cristaliza en las pestañas. * Los esposos no deberían dejar a sus esposas o al menos sus huellas no deberían extrañarlas. Ella me dijo ya eres un hombre grande pero aún camino con los cordones desatados y saludo a las cajeras con un rubor morado. Mientras ella me acompaña, qué he hecho yo además de masturbarme al sonido del silencio y gozar de una mesa para uno. Nadan en mi sus manos y nacen terremotos catastróficos. La luz de mi departamento se va, tal vez distante las olas pincelan la arena o alguien camina descalzo en el piso de arriba. * Cuando las luces vuelven estoy semi desnudo en la sala de clases y a nadie le importa. Así se sentía. Las piernas de una araña tropezándose con los bellos, el velo de una novia rozándole las pestañas. Una densidad mocosa haciendo cosquillas al paladar. Todos los niños en la escuela de niños mirando como me visto, sentado parado gritando delirando leyéndoles Neruda, invitando al difunto en una mesa de madera roble arrastrada por unas señoritas y él embalsamado embalsamado tieso con los sesos afuera ahí en las manos diciendo sus palabras y uno que otro chiquillo con la boca abierta, los demás bostezando. |
Nina Zúñiga is a 25-year-old Chilean writer and translator. She lives in La Ligua, Chile and will soon graduate from the Creative Literature undergraduate program at Diego Portales University.
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Meg Carter is a writer and literary translator from the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work can be found in Permafrost Magazine, Revista Grifo, and Thimble Literary Magazine.
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