The Void Blends in Your Hands by Carmen Lucía Alvarado
Translated by Toshiya Kamei
February 2020| Utopia Science Fiction Magazine
*Poem Nominated for a Rhysing Award 2021*
feel it
stop being nothing to turn into stone
bang your skull against the void
bang it again and again
remove broken bones
stick your hand in the hole in your skull
feel the moisture of your reason stuck to your fingers
take out your gray wet brain
a piece of raw, dead matter
with some mollusk and a lot of mystery
gaze at the beauty
caught in its slots
take it in your arms
like an unborn child
press it against your chest
lull it
wash it with the empowered cry that you walk between
sing to it
sing the beauty you wanted to name through it
tell it about the unlikely futures of the sublime
about infinite chasms and mysteries of silence
about poems that outline the dreams of the sleeping gods
On his knees the astronaut poet invents mythologies
to sleep with his dead brain in his arms
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El vacío se conjuga entre tus manos
siéntelo
deja de ser nada para convertirse en piedra
golpea al vacío contra tu cráneo
golpéalo una y otra vez
retira los huesos rotos
introduce tu mano entre el agujero de tu cráneo
siente la humedad de tu razón adherirse a tus dedos
saca tu cerebro gris y húmedo
trozo de materia cruda y muerta
con algo de molusco y mucho de misterio
contempla la belleza
atrapada entre sus ranuras
tómalo entre tus brazos
como a un hijo nonato
apriétalo contra tu pecho
arrúllalo
lávalo con el llanto empozado entre el que caminas
cántale
cántale la belleza que quisiste nombrar a través de él
cuéntale de los futuros improbables de lo sublime
de los abismos infinitos y misterios del silencio
de los poemas que esbozan los sueños de los dioses dormidos
De rodillas el poeta astronauta inventa mitologías
para dormir con su cerebro muerto entre los brazos
END
Originally published in the February 2020 issue of Utopia Science Fiction Magazine
About the Author:
Carmen Lucía Alvarado is a poet and editor based in Guatemala City. She is the author of the poetry collections Imagen y semejanza (2010), Poetas astronautas (2012), and Edad geológica del miedo (2018). She is currently working on her fourth poetry collection Pangea Muerte. Translations of her poems have appeared in venues such as Abyss & Apex, BFS Horizons, Samovar, and Star*Line.
