Translated by by Lupita Eyde-Tucker

 

 

 

COMMON CRIME

 

Wounds say that our life is a common crime.
FLORIANO MARTINS

 

I’d rather rip my skin off
            than wear the left-over flesh of my wounds
I’d rather leave scabs with names
than this open membrane
yellow
devoid of traces
devoid of dissident past

I’ve tried it all: you don’t heal.
I exercise the muscle you left behind
the only formula of escape towards another direction
                                    the common crime of a full morgue
                                                is forgetting it all

like a body sprawled on a highway
struggling to survive in the face of indifference
from this unhinged mouth that also attempted to            scream.
 

---

 

I REMEMBER WHEN DYING WAS A CIRCUMSTANCE

Only what rips apart remains still.

Luis Alberto Crespo

I remember when dying was a circumstance
            when veins creaked
            ripped out by a perfect word

When the floor was stained
by so many broken needles
so much varnish spilled
so many deformed fingernails

when we sketched poverty
in black notebooks
and painted with blood
what we could never forgive

when we avoided the truth
because it wasn’t favorable
and pretended to cry on the floor
with bruised knuckles

I remember we chose to be water
while the wound dried
stained ourselves with adolescence
as if waiting for amnesty like a prize

When to be thirteen
was to be younger
and to suffer more
so much that
we stained our hearts
when we chose
to scar the womb

Years passed
and the stains lasted
like dog prints
sniffing at life

We aren’t fifteen anymore
nor eighteen
and drinking alcohol is no longer exciting
burns my neck
burns the cord
causes ulcers

You no longer speak to me
nor I to you
and I don’t know what I’m hiding from
when I’m quiet, tearing at myself.

***

ORIETTE D’ANGELO (Caracas, 1990) is a PhD candidate in Spanish Literature at the University of Iowa and the editor of both the literary magazine Digo.palabra.txt and the research and broadcasting project #PoetasVenezolanas. She has an MFA in Creative Writing in Spanish from the University of Iowa, and an MA in digital communication and media arts from DePaul University. She is the author of two collections of poetry and two chapbooks, and she edited an anthology of young Venezuelan poets called Amanecimos Sobre la Palabra (Team Poetero Ediciones, 2017). Her poems have appeared in anthologies in Venezuela, Argentina, Mexico, and Ecuador. Her website is http://www.oriettedangelo.com.

LUPITA EYDE-TUCKER (New Jersey, 1971) is an Ecuadorian-American poet who writes and translates poetry in English and Spanish. Her poems have appeared in Nashville Review, Columbia Journal, Raleigh Review, Women’s Voices for Change, [PANK], American Life in Poetry, The Cortland Review, MER, and Ninth Letter. Since 2018 she has been translating Venezuelan poet Oriette D’Angelo. Mother to five children, Lupita is currently pursuing an MFA in Poetry at the University of Florida, where she teaches creative writing. Lupita has received fellowships and institutional support from Kentucky Women Writers Conference, Bread Loaf Writers Conferences, the NY State Summer Writers Institute, and Vermont Studio Center.  Read more of her work here: www.NotEnoughPoetry.com