OTRA VEZ

Necesitas fantasmas en tu ADN para apreciar la interioridad de las cosas, polinizar recuerdos con tus pensamientos, impregnar luz con tu sombra. Necesitas la ligereza de las criaturas feéricas que se disputan sus formas en tus sueños, no la elegancia practicada de las bailarinas. Incluso entonces la esencia del recipiente se agota, dejándote con artefactos inservibles y tristeza forense. Acariciaste el seguro y te deslizaste por el ojo de la cerradura y ahora tienes unos segundos para decidir qué hacer antes de que desaparezca la forma y te quedes fuera, frenético, perdido otra vez, despojado, no del todo preparado para esto otra vez.

Traducción: Iván Soto Camba

The Dead Are Not Unlike Stone Poems To Me

The dead are not unlike stone poems to me. Their melancholy is my gloaming. I find them very much like myself when I encountered them. I’ve outgrown them. I’ve forgiven them every damned thing. and yet they mutter their sorries as if it’s the only business they have with me. They crowd me in the ambulance, they lean over nurses’ shoulders. They look like dried fruit. I’m left to imagine a better world behind them.

I don’t know what an AI machine would say about them. Is it permissible to laugh?

I’ve tried to engage them in conversation, but they’re as self-obsessed as they were when they messed with me in my bed. They’re there, but I’m not here, and no emergency room is bright enough to dispel them. Procedures are always conducted in the dark. I try to think of them as black light. Maybe I’ll find a way to tell you how that turns out.

Djelloul Marbrook