Blood on Your Saddle
Jericho. I return in winter
to the cruelest acreage I know in Alabama.
Mama I say. Speak his name.
Robert.
Your twin the other half of the bivalve shell of your heart.
Tell me about that winter
when his eyes changed to gray.
At Jericho the lake was almost frozen.
In a ditch by the highway we found a litter of stray puppies
– eight, like us. To die from hunger was too cruel.
We agreed to give them the gift of a quick death.
It was the bone stump of winter. Night rushing in.
We tied them in a potato sack to drown them.
But we had no gloves and the knot I tied
wasn’t strong enough. They cried they clawed wildly
at the icy brim. We watched
until the last one then walked home
down the lane into the freezing slash pines
not meeting the other’s mirrored face.
Neither of us was strong enough to console the other.
Speak his name.
Robert
shot himself at Jericho
the following November. The blackbirds flew
from the branches where they roosted
in the winter tree of his heart.
Hours later you came like an archeologist
to clean up the remains. Shard of bone.
A fine mist of blood on fallen leaves.
Empty styrofoam coffee cup from Hardee’s
drive-thru, its bitten rim where his teeth had been.
Out of eight children you alone survived
the ghost of childhood. Haunted still
a black mare in solitary pasture
burning across the hunger fields
of winter your coal-black mane in flames
setting fire to the land as your leave.
[Sangre sobre tu silla de cabalgar] (trad.)
Jericho. I return in winter
to the cruelest acreage I know in Alabama.
Mama I say. Speak his name.
Robert.
Your twin the other half of the bivalve shell of your heart.
Tell me about that winter
when his eyes changed to gray.
At Jericho the lake was almost frozen.
In a ditch by the highway we found a litter of stray puppies
– eight, like us. To die from hunger was too cruel.
We agreed to give them the gift of a quick death.
It was the bone stump of winter. Night rushing in.
We tied them in a potato sack to drown them.
But we had no gloves and the knot I tied
wasn’t strong enough. They cried they clawed wildly
at the icy brim. We watched
until the last one then walked home
down the lane into the freezing slash pines
not meeting the other’s mirrored face.
Neither of us was strong enough to console the other.
Speak his name.
Robert
shot himself at Jericho
the following November. The blackbirds flew
from the branches where they roosted
in the winter tree of his heart.
Hours later you came like an archeologist
to clean up the remains. Shard of bone.
A fine mist of blood on fallen leaves.
Empty styrofoam coffee cup from Hardee’s
drive-thru, its bitten rim where his teeth had been.
Out of eight children you alone survived
the ghost of childhood. Haunted still
a black mare in solitary pasture
burning across the hunger fields
of winter your coal-black mane in flames
setting fire to the land as your leave.
Sangre sobre tu silla de cabalgar
Jane Alsen Elkins
Traducido por Sabrina Ramos
Jericho. En invierno retorno
a los acres más despiadados que conozco en toda Alabama.
Mami le digo. Di su nombre.
Robert.
Tu gemelo la otra mitad de la concha del bivalvo que es tu corazón.
Cuéntame de aquel invierno
cuando los ojos de él se tornaron grises.
En Jericho, el lago estaba a punto de congelarse.
En una zanja, al lado de la carretera, descubrimos una camada de perros realengos.
—eran ocho, como nosotros—. Morir de hambre resultaba demasiado cruel.
Acordamos regalarles la misericordia de una muerte súbita.
Pasó durante el muñón del hueso invernal. La noche caía rauda.
Dentro de un saco de papas, los atamos para que se ahogaran
Pero nos hicieron falta los guantes y yo no había amarrado
el nudo con suficiente fuerza Gimieron Arañaron fieramente
la superficie gélida. Observamos
aun hasta que el último y andamos de vuelta a casa
bajando por la vereda nos adentramos por el pinar helado
sin que los espejos de nuestros rostros se encontraran.
Ninguno de los dos fue lo bastante fuerte para consolar al otro.
Di su nombre.
Robert
se suicidó de un tiro en Jericho
el siguiente noviembre. Los tordos se dispersaron
de las ramas sobre las que anidaban
en el árbol invernal de su corazón.
Horas más tarde, llegaste como una arqueóloga.
a limpiar los restos. Añicos de hueso.
Un leve rocío de sangre sobre hojas caídas.
Vaso de poliestireno para café de la ventanilla de un Hardee’s,
vacío, el borde mordisqueado en donde él hundió los dientes.
De ocho hijos, fuiste tú la única sobreviviente
el fantasma de la infancia. Sigues privada de sosiego
una yegua negra en un pastizal solitario
que en llamas atraviesa los campos invernales
del hambre tu crin negra como el carbón ardiente
incendiando los campos mientras te alejas.