from claus and the scorpion
By Lara Dopazo Ruibal
Translated by Laura Cesarco Eglin
(Forthcoming Summer 2022 from co•im•press)
the scorpion draws a shadow of discord
over lara and among the laras that inhabit lara
where are you going with that name, hisses the scorpion
moving slowly across my chest
the smoke of discord goes down
lower and lower
the ants devour each other
i stop breathing and tear
very slowly
the seams that hold the top of my chest together
claus is at the bottom of the paper
a name articulated in dry leaves
in twigs. in
straw.
claus is a frail nest
of excessive weight.
i take the leaves, twigs, and straw
to the bottom of the paper. i carry corpses
as do the ants that live
inside my skull
they make a nest. i
call for claus, stuttering, incoherent
making no sense outside the margins of this structure
i spend days on end there and
nobody knows where i am. what i do
i pick up a needle from the bottom of a puddle and with it
i tattoo the letters of his name. the mud
gets inside my skin. it causes infections.
like rivers, the insects come to my wounds
black streams crawling inside me
under my skin
i’m so busy building myself i forget
i have a body. i dismiss
this intense pain in my temples
no appetite
the fast rhythm of my heart. exhaustion
no verse has moved me for a long time
no voice.
sometimes i’m flustered by the scent of that perfume
that body. but it’s not it, nothing is
as it was before winter
the straw structure anchors at the bottom of the paper
but no one cares about the paper.
i put the nest in a huge box and post it
i send it to myself
i’m free for a few days
under my skull the ants party
because claus
breathes
o alacrán deseña unha sombra de discordia
sobre lara e entre as laras que habitan a lara
onde vas con ese nome, sisea o alacrán
desprazándose amodo polo peito
o fume da discordia vai baixando
cada vez máis baixo
as formigas devóranse unhas ás outras
eu deixo de respirar e rompo
moi amodo
as costuras que fechan a tapa do peito
no fondo do papel está claus
un nome que se artella en follas secas
en pólas pequenas. en
palla.
claus é un niño feble
cun peso desmesurado.
levo cara o fondo do papel as follas, as pólas
a palla. carrexo cadáveres, tal
como fan as formigas que me viven
dentro do cranio
elas fan niño. eu
chamo por claus tatexa, incoherente
carente de sentido fóra das marxes da súa estrutura
paso días alí metida.
ninguén sabe onde estou. que fago
recollo unha agulla do fondo dun charco e con ela
tatúo as letras do seu nome. a lama
métese dentro da pel. prodúceme infeccións.
ás feridas veñen os insectos como ríos
regatos negros a se meter dentro de min
por baixo da pel
estou tan ocupada en construírme que esquezo
que teño un corpo. obvio
esta dor intensa nas sens
a falta de fame
a velocidade do corazón. a canseira
hai xa tempo que ningún verso me emociona
ningunha voz.
ás veces altérame o recendo daquel perfume
daquel corpo. pero non é, nada é
como antes do inverno
a estrutura de palla fondea no final do papel
mais a ninguén lle interesa o papel.
meto o niño nunha caixa inmensa e bótoa ao correo
remitida a min propia
durante uns días son libre
debaixo do cranio as formigas fan unha festa
porque claus
respira
Lara Dopazo Ruibal was born in Marín (Galicia, Spain). She has a BA in journalism and two MA degrees: one in international cooperation and one in theoretical and practical philosophy. Dopazo Ruibal has published four poetry collections and she is the coeditor and coauthor of the experimental essay volume A través das marxes: Entrelazando feminismos, ruralidades e comúns. Her poetry collection ovella was awarded the Francisco Añón Prize in 2015, and with claus e o alacrán she received the Fiz Vergara Vilariño Prize in 2017. Dopazo Ruibal was a resident artist at the Spanish Royal Academy in Rome for the academic year 2018–2019. She won the Illa Nova Narrative Award with her short stories collection O axolote e outros contos de bestas e auga (Editorial Galaxia, 2020). Photo Credit: Jesús Castro Yanhez.
Laura Cesarco Eglin is the translator of Of Death. Minimal Odes by Hilda Hilst, (co•im•press, 2018), which won the 2019 Best Translated Book Award in Poetry. She is the co-translator from the Portuñol of Fabián Severo’s Night in the North (Eulalia Books, 2020). claus and the scorpion, Cesarco Eglin’s translation from Galician of Lara Dopazo Ruibal’s poetry collection, is forthcoming from co•im•press in 2022. Her translations from Spanish, Portuguese, Portuñol, and Galician have appeared in a variety of journals, including Asymptote, Timber, Exchanges, Modern Poetry in Translation, Eleven Eleven, the Massachusetts Review, Cordella Magazine, Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts, Waxwing Journal, and The Puritan. Cesarco Eglin is the author of six poetry collections, including Time/Tempo: The Idea of Breath (PRESS 254, 2022) and Life, One Not Attached to Conditionals (Thirty West Publishing House, 2020). She is the co-founding editor and publisher of Veliz Books and teaches creative writing at the University of Houston-Downtown. Find out more at lauracesarcoeglin.com.
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.