Kristin Dykstra translating Reina María Rodríguez

the difference


I, who have seen the difference
in the shadow that objects still cast across my eyes
— passion for reconstructing loss;
extravagance of sensation —
in the only country that isn’t far away,
where you go. where you stay.
I know your days are marked
on the terracotta tablet
— dating from the reign of some king or another —
in Japanese calligraphy that reminds me of wrinkles.
the days are the place where we live.
there’s no space other than the strip over which your eyes
pass at sunset.
you won’t be able to choose any other place, only
the location of the days,
their difference.
and in that crack between two worlds
to be reborn into a (more aesthetic) species
where we could live according to another awareness of the days
without the extravagances of each conquest.


the difference
a haunted house on the corner of San Rafael
like a cedar in a line of cedars
mouths, destinies
in Beckett’s South-Eastern Railway Terminus
the one who’s diving (1978)


Kristin Dykstra Translating Reina María Rodríguez

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