Rafael Campo
(E.E. U.U. Dover, New Jersey, 1964). De descendencia cubana, es autor de cinco colecciones de poesía: The Other Man Wos Me: 7) Voyage to the New World (Arte Público Press, 1994); What the Body Told (Duke University Press, 1996); Diva (Duke University Press, 1999), escrito con apoyo de una beca de la Fundación John Simón Guggenheím; Landscape with Human Figure (2002) y The Enemy (Duke University Press, 2007). También escribió dos libros de ensayos, The Desire to Heal: A Doctor's Education in Empathy, Identity, and Poetry, y The Healing art (W. W. Norton, 2003). Médico en el Hospital Beth Israel en Boston, también es parte del cuerpo docente de la Facultad de Medicina de Harvard. Admirador de las formas clásicas de la literatura inglesa, utiliza patrones métricos y rimas inusuales que entreteje con temas políticos, sociales y biológicos.
Sobre el derecho de casarse
¿Me vas a recordar igual que como me ves
hoy? Este largo compromiso—veinte años—
ha contraído algunos estragos. Me
acosté anoche y pensé que estábamos
lejos de no sonar más. Giraste hacia mí,
y yo era joven, y aún miedoso; la luna de junio
nos espió, con preocupación familiar. Me dolía
la rodilla, castigo por hacer culto a la tierra
de nuestro pequeño jardín. Los lirios florecidos,
sus caras enjutas y barbudas, de viejos
hermosos, dispensaron sus bendiciones y sus culpas.
Vos pintabas un mueble, y dijiste "lo haré,
por supuesto lo haré". Yo plantaba ajedrea,
no muy resistente a los meses invernales, al lado
de la menta que odias por invasiva.
Se entremetió una brisa, siempre la novia radiante
con quien todos se quieren casar. La labor de una vida,
por la mitad hasta ahora, omnipresente—
estaba cansado, y pronto caería la noche,
pero nadie puede negar el amor, ni nosotros.
(Traducción: Fabián O. Iriarte y Lisa Bradford)
On the Right to Marry
Will you remember me the way I am
today? This long engagement—twenty years—
has taken something of a toll. I came
to bed last night, and thought that we were far
from being done with dreams. You turned to me,
and I was young, and still afraid; June's moon
peered in, parental with concern. My knee
ached, punishment for worshipping the loam
in our small garden. Irises in bloom,
their wizened, bearded faces beautiful
old men's, dispensed their blessings and their blame.
You painted furniture, and said "I will,
of course I will." I planted savory,
not hardy through the winter months, beside
the mint you hate for its invasiveness.
A breeze intruded, always the bright bride
the whole world wants to marry. A life's work,
as yet only half done, ubiquitous—
I felt tired, and it would soon be dark,
but none may refuse love, not even us.
Perdido en el Hospital
No es que a mí no me guste el hospital.
Esos ramos de flores, tan audaces.
Ese vaho de yodo. Los enfermos
absortos y genuinos en sus cuartos.
Mi amigo, el que se está muriendo, ha ido
conmigo a donde los pacientes fuman
con sus tanques de oxígeno a un costado:
un patio de esqueletos. Compartimos
un cigarrillo: una delicia corta,
demasiado. Tomé su mano y era
como asir un llavero. Fue bellísimo:
la luz del sol nos apuntaba, como
si importáramos algo. Merodeé
por un momento el hueco en sus costillas
que se abrió para mí, y junto al estruendo
del salto de su corazón, froté
mis ojos y me dije “estoy perdido”.
Versión del inglés de Pedro Poitevin
Iatrogenic
You say, “I do this to myself.” Outside,
my other patients wait. Maybe snow falls;
we’re all just waiting for our deaths to come,
we’re all just hoping it won’t hurt too much.
You say, “It makes it seem less lonely here.”
I study them, as if the deep red cuts
were only wounds, as if they didn’t hurt
so much. The way you hold your upturned arms,
the cuts seem aimed at your unshaven face.
Outside, my other patients wait their turns.
I run gloved fingertips along their course,
as if I could touch pain itself, as if
by touching pain I might alleviate
my own despair. You say, “It’s snowing, Doc.”
The snow, instead of howling, soundlessly
comes down. I think you think it’s beautiful;
I say, “This isn’t all about the snow,
is it?” The way you hold your upturned arms,
I think about embracing you, but don’t.
I think, “We do this to ourselves.” I think
the falling snow explains itself to us,
blinding, faceless, and so deeply wounding.
Love Song for Love Songs
A golden age of love songs and we still
can’t get it right. Does your kiss really taste
like butter cream? To me, the moon’s bright face
was neither like a pizza pie nor full;
the Beguine began, but my eyelid twitched.
“No more I love you’s," someone else assured
us, pouring out her heart, in love (of course)—
what bothers me the most is that high-pitched,
undone whine of “Why am I so alone?”
Such rueful misery is closer to
the truth, but once you turn the lamp down low,
you must admit that he is still the one,
and baby, baby he makes you so dumb
you sing in the shower at the top of your lungs
The Distant Moon
I
Admitted to the hospital again.
The second bout of pneumocystis back
In January almost killed him; then,
He’d sworn to us he’d die at home. He baked
Us cookies, which the student wouldn’t eat,
Before he left--the kitchen on 5A
Is small, but serviceable and neat.
He told me stories: Richard Gere was gay
And sleeping with a friend if his, and AIDS
Was an elaborate conspiracy
Effected by the government. He stayed
Four months. He lost his sight to CMV.
II
One day, I drew his blood, and while I did
He laughed, and said I was his girlfriend now,
His blood-brother. “Vampire-slut," he cried,
“You’ll make me live forever!” Wrinkled brows
Were all I managed in reply. I know
I’m drowning in his blood, his purple blood.
I filled my seven tubes; the warmth was slow
To leave them, pressed inside my palm. I’m sad
Because he doesn’t see my face. Because
I can’t identify with him. I hate
The fact that he’s my age, and that across
My skin he’s there, my blood-brother, my mate.
III
He said I was too nice, and after all
If Jodie Foster was a lesbian,
Then doctors could be queer. Residual
Guilts tingled down my spine. “OK, I’m done,"
I said as I withdrew the needle from
His back, and pressed. The CSF was clear;
I never answered him. That spot was framed
In sterile, paper drapes. He was so near
Death, telling him seemed pointless. Then, he died.
Unrecognizable to anyone
But me, he left my needles deep inside
His joking heart. An autopsy was done.
IV
I’d read to him at night. His horoscope,
The New York Times, The Advocate;
Some lines by Richard Howard gave us hope.
A quiet hospital is infinite,
The polished, ice-white floors, the darkened halls
That lead to almost anywhere, to death
Or ghostly, lighted Coke machines. I call
To him one night, at home, asleep. His breath,
I dreamed, had filled my lungs--his lips, my lips
Had touched. I felt as though I’d touched a shrine.
Not disrespectfully, but in some lapse
Of concentration. In a mirror shines
The distant moon.
Hospital Writing Workshop
Arriving late, my clinic having run
past 6 again, I realize I don’t
have cancer, don’t have HIV, like them,
these students who are patients, who I lead
in writing exercises, reading poems.
For them, this isn’t academic, it’s
reality: I ask that they describe
an object right in front of them, to make
it come alive, and one writes about death,
her death, as if by just imagining
the softness of its skin, its panting rush
into her lap, that she might tame it; one
observes instead the love he lost, he’s there,
beside him in his gown and wheelchair,
together finally again. I take
a good, long breath; we’re quiet as newborns.
The little conference room grows warm, and right
before my eyes, I see that what I thought
unspeakable was more than this, was hope.
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