black muses, by Komail Aijazuddin
I want to die beneath the earth
in eternal dialogue with the salts, my hair roots
my words clay,
where your sowing eyes never hurt me
amidst a town of the dead, my mouth blocked up.
A world of hard rain
and gray hairs sweeter than man’s memory
it will be a thick day when my tongue is touched
and a tender hand joins up the bones.
I want to feel the circular earth through my bones
bite it coldly, pound it with my shinbones
feel myself in its immense placenta, sleepy
like a boy awaiting a new birth.
Water emerges continuous powder
from my eyes sealed like an old letter:
an autumn tombstone rests on a tree
a maggot of time scratches my bone.
~ Edmundo Camargo, trans. from Spanish by Jessica Sequeira
Edmundo Camargo was born in Sucre and died in Cochabamba, the year his book of poems ‘del tiempo de la muerte’ was published.
Jessica Sequeira is a writer and translator living in Buenos Aires.Â
