"Permutations",
|
|
PERMUTATIONS
A sticker for another sticker became
a passion for a drawer for trash.
Recycling happens on the tip
of my fingers where I still feel
the fuzzy caterpillars, the glossy
fairies. My two hands
curl when in danger, guarding
my fingertips as much as inwards
is inside. I exercise them passing
those tips over surfaces to stream
cores like slicing melons and finding
fruit in your teeth. I force my fingers
over what’s rough, let them bleed.
It only hurts if the red doesn’t
stain. Blood for another day.
WITH THYME
I’m trying to catch what runs
as fast as the river. I wait.
Breath happens
regardless of what the mouth is
doing. To me
it runs until it changes direction
until it’s time and time is all the time
intervening in the process of cooking
and compulsion. To have it be
inside. Returning to what
ran away what stopped
when I breathed.
LISTENING
I’m trying to hold my breath
one word at a time. Silence is
too subtle to let it speak all
at once is slower when it comes
to discerning what is not heard.
Quiet is in the tongue
that subsides to language.
A sticker for another sticker became
a passion for a drawer for trash.
Recycling happens on the tip
of my fingers where I still feel
the fuzzy caterpillars, the glossy
fairies. My two hands
curl when in danger, guarding
my fingertips as much as inwards
is inside. I exercise them passing
those tips over surfaces to stream
cores like slicing melons and finding
fruit in your teeth. I force my fingers
over what’s rough, let them bleed.
It only hurts if the red doesn’t
stain. Blood for another day.
WITH THYME
I’m trying to catch what runs
as fast as the river. I wait.
Breath happens
regardless of what the mouth is
doing. To me
it runs until it changes direction
until it’s time and time is all the time
intervening in the process of cooking
and compulsion. To have it be
inside. Returning to what
ran away what stopped
when I breathed.
LISTENING
I’m trying to hold my breath
one word at a time. Silence is
too subtle to let it speak all
at once is slower when it comes
to discerning what is not heard.
Quiet is in the tongue
that subsides to language.
Laura Cesarco Eglin is the author of three collections of poetry, Llamar al agua por su nombre (Mouthfeel Press, 2010), Sastrería (Yaugurú, 2011), and Los brazos del saguaro (Yaugurú, 2015). A selection of poems from Sastería was translated collaboratively into English with Teresa Williams, and subsequently published as the chapbook Tailor Shop: Threads (Finishing Line Press, 2013). Cesarco Eglin recently published the chapbook Occasions to Call Miracles Appropriate (Lunamopolis, The Lune series, 2015). Her poems and translations have appeared or are forthcoming in a variety of journals, including Modern Poetry in Translation, MiPOesias, Eleven Eleven, Puerto del Sol, Copper Nickel, Tupelo Quarterly, Columbia Poetry Review, Timber, Pretty Owl Poetry, Pilgrimage, Periódico de Poesía, Metrópolis, and more. Her poems are also featured in the Uruguayan women’s section of Palabras Errantes, Plusamérica: Latin American Literature in Translation. Cesarco Eglin's poetry will appear in América invertida: An Anthology of Emerging Uruguayan Poets forthcoming from the University of New Mexico Press in 2016. Cesarco Eglin's work has been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is the co-founder and publisher of Veliz Books.