Facsimile
Sara Uribe in Spanish
For Santos Reyes
the speechless woman was made of dust
detritus from her years my own
someone (it's your sister my father said)
turns a page
clips an ad from the newspaper
lifts her hand to stop a taxi
she hurries, it's not her desire to arrive late
passengers headed to / please board
someone: that one: the speechless woman
for this effect could one
in order to replace the terms
repetition / cacophony
use the word sister?
could prosthesis
mudlaberinth
leave the doors
could one
opened
forced
like the name
as it bursts
pass through rooms
would it be possible / impossible
the childhood that did not
maybe identical
the shadow
the lunar mole / solar plot
the bipartite?
maybe renters
who take over
the building
and deposit
payment
in the courts?
nothing more murky
than the closeness
of that outsider
that woman my father
brought home
without warning
rapids
in the glass
that slips
and plummets
in the splinters'
banquet / filings
instantaneous
like the flash
of a photograph
that never / that no one / what no one
has coins to flip? / so no one
brings bread to their mouth
in the face of hunger / the last name
the woman who recently disembarked was no one
I turned away from her at the wrong moment
in her eyes the verb bifrontal
the verb lip-corner / the catalogue of absences
the vapor
the seed
a cornice?
inoffensive
the word
the half
of that word
that we have left
what do we have left
if the others
are us
our bed
its sheets
and the kiss / signal
to sleep
and in her mouth
to burn?
because someone (it's your sister my father said)
let's use: she
let's use: cut and paste
the speechless woman
nescient like you
her whole life
of the loom's long lines
eats breakfast this morning
at your table
and you ask yourself if she'll spend the night
in the room next door
if she will get up at the hour
to resort
to the margins
if dreamlike
with you she initiated
a dialogue of dust
the edges / if her voice
Translated by John Pluecker
~~~~~
Sara Uribe is from Querétaro, Mexico but has lived in the border state of Tamaulipas since 1996. She has published six books: Lo que no imaginas, Palabras más palabras menos, Nunca quise detener el tiempo, Goliat, Antígona González and Siam. Her poems have appeared in periodicals and anthologies in Mexico, Peru, Spain, Canada and the United States.
John Pluecker is a writer, interpreter, translator and co-founder of the language justice and literary experimentation collaborative Antena. His texts have appeared in journals in the U.S. and Mexico, including The Volta, Mandorla, Aufgabe, and Literal. He has translated numerous books from the Spanish, including most recently Tijuana Dreaming: Life and Art at the Global Border (Duke University Press, 2012). His most recent chapbook is Killing Current (Mouthfeel Press, 2012).