J o r g e T e i l l i e r —
translated by S o n n e t P h e l p s & S e b a s t i á n G ó m e z M a t u s
Games
The kids play in little chairs,
the grown-ups have nothing to play with.
The grown-ups tell the kids
that one should speak in a low voice.
The grown-ups are standing
beside the afternoon’s ruined light.
The kids receive the stories
that come from from the night
like a horde of muddy calves
while the grown-ups repeat
that one should speak in a low voice.
The kids hide
under the spiral staircase
telling their untellable stories
like the ears of corn sunning themselves on the roofs
and for the grown-ups only silence arrives
empty like a wall no longer crossed by shadows.
After Everything
After everything
we will meet again.
The summer will spread its tablecloths on the ground
so we can set out our provisions
and you’ll still be beautiful
like the song “Midday Wine”
that the fool played in the woodstove.
After all
there are many, many lands.
I’m not impatient.
We have all the years in the world to traverse them
until we are together again
and you’ll tell me
that you met me once
on a little planet I don’t remember
a planet called Earth
and you’ll speak to me
of houses visited by the moon
bills bet at the horseraces
our initials drawn with white chalk
on a wall in demolition.
Let’s make all the mistakes we want.
The land of unlove doesn’t exist
before that gesture of yours of pointing out
a neighborhood plaza’s magnolias,
your head on my shoulder,
the clear nocturnal music of your body.
A gesture remakes everything:
when the house catches fire
its life continues whole
in the scorched page of a notebook,
the surviving bishop on the chessboard.
In another place, far from this land and its time
I wait for your face
where all the faces I have loved will gather,
and we will begin again as the strangers
that years ago gazed and gazed at each other
without daring to say they would fall in love.
When I Wasn’t a Poet
When I wasn’t a poet
I joked that I was a poet
although I hadn’t written a single verse
but I admired the town poet’s wide-brimmed hat.
One morning I encountered my neighbor in the street.
She asked me if I was a poet.
She was fourteen years old.
The first time I spoke with her
she carried a bouquet of illusions.
The second time an anemone in her hair.
The third time a gladiolus between her lips.
The fourth time she didn’t bring a single flower
and I asked the flowers in the plaza what this meant
and they didn’t know what to say
and neither did my botany teacher.
She had translated poems by Christian Morgenstern for me.
It didn’t occur to me to give her anything in exchange.
Life was very hard for me.
I didn’t want to give up a single page of my notebook.
Her eyes shot caliber-44 bullets of love.
This gave me insomnia.
I shut myself in my room for a long time.
When I left I encountered her in the plaza and she didn’t say hi.
I went back to my house and wrote my first poem.
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