Between sea-foam and the tide
his back rises
while afternoon in solitude
went down.
I held his black eyes, like grasses
among brown Pacific shells.
I held his fine lips
like a salt boiling in the sands.
I held, at last, his incense-chin
under the sun.
A boy of the world over me
and Biblical songs
modeled his legs, his ankles
and the grapes of his sex
and the raining hymns that sprang
from his mouth
entwining us like two seafarers
lashed to the uncertain sails of love.
In his arms, I live.
In his hard arms I longed to die
like a wet bird.
~
A UN MUCHADO
Entre la espuma y la marea
se levanta su espalda
cuando la tarde ya
iba cayendo sola.
Tuve sus ojos negros, como hierbas,
entre las conchas brunas del Pacifico.
Tuve sus labios finos
como una sal hervida en las arenas.
Tuve, en fin, su barbilla de incienso
bajo el sol.
Un muchacho del mundo sobre mi
y los cantares de la Biblia
modelaron sus piernas, sus tobillos
y las uvas del sexo
y los himnos pluviales que nacen de su boca
envolviendonos si como a dos nautas
enlazados al velamen incierto del amor.
Entre sus brazos, vivo.
Entre sus brazos duros quise morir
como un ave mojada.
translated by Kathleen Weaver
Nancy Morejón
Where the Island Sleeps Like A Wing
(Black Scholar Press, 1985)
WITH A MOTHER OF CHINESE AND EUROPEAN ANCESTRY, AND A FATHER'S AFRICAN HERITAGE, NANCY MOREJON WAS BORN IN HAVANA IN 1944. HER PUBLISHED WORK HAS SPANNED POETRY, DRAMA, HISTORICAL, AND CRITICAL STUDIES ON NICOLAS GUILLEN, PLUS TRANSLATIONS OF ELUARD, CESAIRE AND OTHERS.
