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  • Transversal
  • Urayoán Noel (bio)

Son transversales siempre las significaciones.      There's a transversal ghost in the self's foundations.Es un cliché decir que yo soy mis relaciones.      It's a cliché to say we're webs of relations.Más bien somos dos ratas trepando zafacones      I'd say we're two old rats storming trashcan nationsEn el antropoceno sin imaginaciones.      In the anthropocene's gnawed imaginations.

Me trepas y te trepo. Me montas y te monto.      You ride me. I ride you. I climb you. You climb me.Por el tiempo que dure. Por lo bajo y lo pronto.      For as long as it lasts with our hands all grimy.Como feliz bacteria cruzando su Helesponto      Our hearts somehow intact. Our minds a bit slimy.De piel a la intemperie con carita de tonto.      I like you how you are. No need to untie me.

Me montas y te monto. Me trepas y te trepo.|      I climb you. You climb me. You ride me. I ride you.Me dices al oído lo extraño que te sepo.      You say I taste funny. So sweet when I tried you!Durante la tormentaya no sé dónde quepo.      A storm swallows us. I feel lost inside you.Me agarro de la muerte. Tu άrbol de quenepo.      So I hold on to death. It's my turn to guide you.

Terminan los lenguajes. Queda lo que transcribo.      Languages evanesce. Leaving what I transcribe.Esa incomodidad de sentirse aún vivo.      That terrible malaise of feeling half-alive.Criatura del bosque sin más suelo nativo.      A forest creature dies. No native soil or tribe.Máquinas ecocidas compradas sin recibo.      The ecocide machines compress our diatribe.

Islotes descosidos. Desconocido flujo.      Unraveled island thoughts flow from an unknown sea.En la austeridad el orgasmo es un lujo.      Orgasms are a must under austerity.La caricia un conjuro y la rima un embrujo.      Caress means knotted lust. Rhyme is an augury.Me vengo [de mi suerte]. En ti me desdibujo.      I come [to know myself] in your dark apogee. [End Page 563]

Urayoán Noel

Urayoán Noel is Associate Professor of English and Spanish at New York University. His books include In Visible Movement: Nuyorican Poetry from the Sixties to Slam (2014), winner of the LASA Latino Studies Book Award; the poetry collection Buzzing Hemisphere/Rumor Hemisférico (2015); and Architecture of Dispersed Life (2018), a bilingual edition of the poetry of Pablo de Rokha, which was shortlisted for the National Translation Award.

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