Listen to Liana Kapelke-Dale read this poem in Spanish and English.

translated from the Spanish by Liana Kapelke-Dale

The water on your face
in a corner of the garden,
the darkest of the summer,
sings like the moon.

Ghost.
Horrible at midday.
Level with the lilies,
death smiles.
On a little pond,
eye of god,
an insect floats face-up.
Honey hisses in its belly
open to summer’s finger.

Level with your face, everything sings
suspended like an eternal light
between night and night.

The swamp sings,
the trees burn,
there is no distance,
there is no time.

Summer brings what’s been forgotten,
the world is this street of fire
where all the roses fall and are born again,
where bodies are consumed
bound forever
in the blackest of summer.

In a corner of the garden
beneath a stone, summer sings.
In the blackest,
in the blindest and whitest,
where all the roses fall,
there floats your face,
ghost,
horrible at midday.

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