Poems from “Delicates”
“Traveling in Reverse,” “A Face in the Crowd (Graffiti),” “Subway Map,” and “Bunk Beds”
AUGUST 1, 2023
Traveling in Reverse
I pack and unpack my bags
do and redo everything planning to leave
I call my friends I tell them I’m breaking free
then discreetly climb onto the raft
to peacefully soak up the sun’s sorceries
A wedding ring lost in the belly of a fish
And once again suitcases for the trip that can’t be postponed
I see and see that frozen slab of marble
which becomes the boots of my personal monument
Look how my tears travel on the suitcase
follow them with your index finger
and you will reach the center of my doubts
I fish in the same sea that makes my eyes overflow
I see how my half-packed suitcase rises to the surface
my tormented compass
and a boy’s drawing of the Cuban map
I trace the thousand ways of an exploratory survey
Dip your foot in to test the exact temperature of the waters
pull back a bit and then leave
for the endless and closing regatta
Someone jokingly shoves me and I almost drown
but I maintain a surprising state of equilibrium
I travel into the interior
enlightened sighting from afar that I dictate
the last line of my ideas.
A Face in the Crowd (Graffiti)
My parents were once of sound mind
Singing in chorus they met in a crowded plaza
And loved each other in a sea of ten bunk beds hushed into silence by a voice
They brought me into the world in a room filled with cots ordered in shared emotions
We swam at beaches packed with bathers blending together in identical
swimsuits and collective trucks
Saturday nights we watched the same movies
weeping along with a country subtitled in black-and-white
Sundays we said our goodbyes
indistinct in the uniformed blue that split us apart
My parents when finally left to themselves
lost their minds.
Subway Map
This is the line you must take to find him
you must take this one to come back to me
no confusing the lines please
white is white and red is red
by going past the old squares you come to me
by stepping inside museums and cafés you’ll run into him
Take everything he gives you except poison
never tell him what you’ve felt
the word exile is forbidden
don’t be a lunatic don’t get naked
don’t let him photograph you for nostalgia’s sake
don’t discuss Havana don’t heal him
don’t sing anything which might recall that sound
don’t give your book away don’t show him his verse
don’t listen to him speak forget him
don’t carry his name in your diary
just get the map and come down to me
finally say goodbye to his reprisals
Once and for all both of you end this silence.
Bunk Beds
Look we tried to put distance between us
To the point of rehearsing being enemies
Look we won prizes money and spaces in museums so far away
Look you call me from the other side of the world to weep or laugh at my fears
Look time goes by and I dress and undress without discovering the years
The school has been restored and new faces blend into each other in my wake
How useless the trips
How stupid to distance oneself
How painful this strange thought of erasing
We all keep sleeping on filthy bunk beds
You on top and I underneath For eternity
Making love Eating Defending ourselves from everything
Demystifying the canonical and the classical
Spending winters like one long cumulative head cold
Shivering because of the grades life will give us
Look we are far from each other but I persist
Asking you to lower the volume on WQAM
To not move so much
To leave me in peace without the excessive promiscuity that brought us together
Asleep in the vertical building maintaining us
Subsidized
Connected
Grouped
Quoted
Distinguished
Missing you terribly
Asleep on the bunk bed sincerely yours I bid you farewell.
✺ Published in “Issue 7: Fiction” of The Dial
Reprinted with permission from Delicates by Wendy Guerra, published by the Seagull Books. Originally published in Spanish as Ropa interior by Bruguera, Barcelona. © Wendy Guerra, 2008. English translation © Nancy Naomi Carlson and Esperanza Hope Snyder, 2023.
