Anulación, Ángela Figuera Aymerich

No ser ni yo. Ni nadie. Lo más, una pastora
perdida en tu silencio de largas soledades;
sentada en tus tomillos; la luz de la mirada
copiando, sin saberlo, los vuelos de las aves;
caída sin nostalgias sobre el fluir del río;
con el desnudo rostro abierto a tu paisaje,
al viento los cabellos, y la tranquila frente
surcada por un ritmo de pensamientos fáciles...

En el regazo quieto, las manos inactivas
dibujarán un nido de vagas ansiedades.

St. Paul and All That, Frank O'Hara

Totally abashed and smiling
                                                 I walk in
                                                 sit down and
                                                 face the frigidaire
           it's April
           no May
           it's May

such little things have to be established in morning
after the big things of night
                                      do you want me to come? when
i think of all the things I've been thinking of
                                                                   I feel insane
simply "life in Birmingham is hell"
                                                   simply "you will miss me
                                                        but that's good"
when the tears of a whole generation are assembled
they will only fill a coffee cup
                                              just because they evaporate
doesn't mean life has heat
                                        "this various dream of living"
I am alive with you
        full of anxious pleasures and pleasurable anxiety
hardness and softness
      listening while you talk and talking while you read
I read what you read
                             you do not read what I read
which is right, I am the one with the curiosity
                             you read for some mysterious reason
                                I read simply because I am a writer
the sun doesn't necessarily set, sometimes it just
                                                                         disappears
                          when you're not here someone walks in
                                                                   and says "hey,
there's no dancer in that bed"
                             O the Polish summers! those drafts!
                       those black and white teeth!
you never come when you say you'll come but on the
                                                    other hand you do come

Flight, Anne Sexton

Thinking that I would find you,
thinking I would make the plane
that goes hourly out of Boston
I drove into the city.
Thinking that on such a night
every thirsty man would have his jug
and that the Negro women would lie down
on pale sheets and even the river into town
would stretch out naturally on its couch,
I drove into the city.
On such a night, at the end of the river,
the airport would sputter with planes
like ticker-tape.

Foot on the gas
I sang aloud to the front seat
to the clumps of women in cotton dresses,
to the patches of fog crusting the banks,
and to the sailboats swinging on their expensive hooks.
There was rose and violet on the river
as I drove through the mist into the city.
I was full of letters I hadn't sent you,
a read coat over my shoulders
and new white gloves in my lap.

I dropped through the city
as the river does
rumbling over and under, as indicated,
past the miles of spotted windows
minding their own business,
through the Sumner Tunnel,
trunk by trunk through its sulfurous walls,
tile by tile like a men's urinal,
slipping through
like somebody else's package.

Parked, at last,
on a dime that would never last,
I ran through the airport.
Wild for love, I ran through the airport,
stockings and skirts and dollars.
The night clerk yawned all night at the public,
his mind on tomorrow's wages.
All flights were grounded.
The planes sat and the gulls sat,
heavy and rigid in a pool of glue.

Knowing I would never find you
I drove out of the city.
At the airport one thousand cripples
sat nursing a sore foot.
There was more fog
and the rain came down when it thought of it.
I drive past the eye and ear infirmaries,
past the office buildings lined up like dentures,
and along Storrow Drive the streetlights
sucked in all the insects who
had nowhere else to go.

Plans for a Future Romance, Emily Berry

Did you wear this scarf for the Piccadilly line? you asked,

because it was blue, and long, I suppose, and no;

but I like the suggestion that I might have picked out

my clothes to line up with our earliest journeys;

and by the way I still haven't told you how closely 

I studied the print of this dream that slowly began

to contain you, quietly lifting off glass as the night 

fell open upon me and bright, spilling these signs that

modestly marked what you might come to mean to me:

a cornflakes box too tall for the press, as you'd call it;

text messages about snooker and sleep; the sticky 

aftertaste of half-sucked sweets; your mouth warm

in the morning; your hand, vanishing last through

a doorway this morning, holding mine as I'm falling awake.

La herida en la lengua, Chantal Maillard

Nunca suficientemente desolados para tocar fondo y arañar el lodo. Tan sólo acariciarlo con la punta de los pies quebrados, huesos Egon Schiele, suspendidos. Levitación en ciernes. Detenida ascensión y vuelo tan sólo permitidos en la fase más leve del sueño.

Soportados por millones de esclavos que arrojados al frío olvidaron su origen y sus cuentos para no recordar el trayecto de ser otro a ser nadie, ¿qué haremos con la vigilia?

Breve temblor de vasos en la mesa. Los pájaros emigran.

Quién tuviese aún tatuada en la piel la segura trayectoria de las aves y la suerte de morir en vuelo, sin sorpresa, sin un grito. Quién pudiese aún vivir en la inocencia, sin preguntas, sin temor y sin vergüenza.