De Septiembre, Capítulo 3 from September, Chapter 3
- De Septiembre, Capítulo 3 from September, Chapter 3
Otra orilla
la orilla donde zarpas en la sangre de todos los cuerpos
(en tu navíode sangre)
Con fuerza cruza a mi cielo de sal
la luz de tu marea
Falta poco para que timbren los trenes y bajen de los vagones tus soldados
El ejército contralbura ondeando su sedosa bandera
(No volveremos a nuestro interior mientras en las miradas carguemos la moneda reluciente del beso)
Quién con la fuerza de qué mano cerrada cubrió tu corazón
¿tú? No
sino el recuerdo del color en los ojos:
Aún mujer con el sol cantando de su boca era
y no en el pecho ésta tu ceniza
latente
Other Edge
the edge where you sail away in the blood of all the bodies
(in your bloodship)
With force crosses to my salt sky
the light of your tide [End Page 251]
Not much longer until the trains whistle and your soldiers come down from the boxcars
The army contrafog their silky flag undulating
(We will not return to our interior while in gazes we carry the coin gleaming of a kiss) [End Page 252]
Who with the force of what closed hand covered your heart
you? No
rather the memory of color in the eyes:
woman still with the sun singing from her mouth it was
and not the chest this your ash
latent
Dolores Dorantes was born in Veracruz in 1973 and has lived most of her life in Ciudad Juárez, where socioeconomic violence and politically charged daily brutalities have informed her radically humane and beautifully incisive work as a poet, journalist, and cultural worker. Dorantes is a rare presence in Mexican literary communities, in that she takes a wide-ranging international stance toward poetry and poetics while refusing to accept state support from a government she cannot respect. She has published four book-length works of poetry in Mexico and is a founding member of the border arts collective Compañía Frugal (Frugal Company), which counts among its activities publication of the monthly poetry broadside series Hoja Frugal, printed in editions of four thousand and distributed free throughout Mexico.
Jenhofer’s translations of Dorantes’s work have appeared in the anthologies Sin puertas visibles: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry by Mexican Women which she edited and translated,and War and Peace 2 as well as in the literary journals 1913; Achiote; Action, Yes; Aufgabe; Counterpath Online; Kenning; and Tampa Review, and as a Seeing Eye chapbook. In early 2008, Counterpath Press and Kenning Editions copublished sexoPUROsexoVELOZ and Septiembre, a bilingual edition of books two and three of Dolores Dorantes by Dolores Dorantes.
Acknowledgment
This excerpt is from chapter 3 of Septiembre, originally published in sexoP-URosexoVELOZ and Septiembre, a bilingual edition of books two and three of Dolores Dorantes by Dolores Dorantes (Counterpath and Kenning Editions, 2008). [End Page 253]
