From Boat People
By Mayra Santos-Febres
Translated by Vanessa Pérez-Rosario
Boat People will be out on June 15, 2021 with Cardboard House Press!
15.
without papers
identities borrowed
floating under forged names00impostors
they’re not meant to be food for seagulls
and yet there they are
burst open on the islet’s shore.
guts so blue
glistening like fish against the sun
and they’re not even meant to
be eaten by pelicans
or swallowed by mangrove water
but you go tell them
tell them
in patois in tiguere in congo or in caribe
frightened ricocheting against fishing yawls
hair tangled in propellers
and floating around
like a bell|
like watery naseberries bursting inside.
like this lipless
a gummy smile where coral grows
a dead cry out there
frightening to most
and in the yawl
silence dreams of the legendary drowned
who lure
them to their palenque.
so tell them
salt was not made for this
a body on the sand
shouldn’t be so bereft of its skin
so you tell them
tell them
in patois in tiguere in congo or in caribe
hunger shouldn’t cost so much.
1.
boat people
mangled bodies
onyx shark
a pelican in their sauce
in their winged and crystal kite
cactus drink
thorny mistletoe
bodies swollen like mollusks
searching in the ocean’s deep
for the sky
of the mouth
that’s their belly.
15.
sin documentos
de nombres ya cambiados
no se llaman como flotan impostores
no son para dar de comer a las gaviotas
y ahí están
reventados por las costas del islote.
de tripa abierta tan azul
que brilla como peces contra el sol
y no son
ni para comerse los pelícanos
y ni para beberse el agua de los mangles
pero díselos tú
a ellos
en patuá en tiguere en congo o en caribe
rebotando de susto contra yolas pescadoras
enredándose de greñas en las hélices
y flotando por ahí
tan campana
tan nísperos de agua reventándose por dentro.
son así sin sus labios
una sonrisa de encías donde crece el coral
son un llanto muerto por ahí
espantando al que más
y en la yola
el silencio sueña con ahogados legendarios
que halan
a donde tienen su palenque.
a ver díselos tú
la sal no se hizo para ésto
un cuerpo sobre la arena
no debe estar así tan desprovisto de su piel
a ver díselos
a ellos
en patuá en tiguere en congo o en caribe
el hambre no es para costar tanto.
1.
boat people
carnes trituradas
tiburón de ónix
pelícano en su salsa
en su volantín de alas y cristal
cactus bebido
muérdago de espina
cuerpos hinchados como moluscos
buscando en el fondo del mar
el cielo
de la boca
que es su vientre.
Mayra Santos-Febres is an award-winning novelist and poet. She is professor at the University of Puerto Rico. She obtained, among other awards, the Letras de Oro and the Juan Rulfo, both in the short story genre. She is the recipient of a John S. Simon Guggenheim scholarship (2017) and the Rockefeller Bellagio Center Residency in 2018. She is the author of the poetry books Anamú y manigua (1990), The escaped order (1991), Boat People (1994), Tercer Mundo Lecciones de resignation (2014-20), Huracanada (2018). She also published the novels Sirena Selena vestida de pena (2001), Cualquier miércoles soy tuya (2002), among others.
Vanessa Pérez-Rosario is a translator and professor of English at Queens College, City University of New York where she teaches U.S. Latinx and Caribbean literatures and cultures. She translated Boat People by Mayra Santos-Febres (Cardboard House Press 2021). She is the author of Becoming Julia de Burgos: The Making of a Puerto Rican Icon (University of Illinois Press 2014) which will be published in a Spanish edition in 2021. She is currently editing a bilingual anthology of Julia de Burgos’ collected writings. She is editor of Hispanic Caribbean Literature of Migration: Narratives of Displacement (Palgrave 2010), and managing editor @smallaxeproject
Poesía en acción is an Action Books blog feature for Latin American and Spanish poetry in translation and the translator micro-interview series. It was created by Katherine M. Hedeen and is currently curated and edited by Olivia Lott with web editing by Paul Cunningham.