LAURA MAYRON [18.368]

Laura Mayron

Poeta, EE.UU. Laura Mayron es una estudiante de la Universidad de Wellesley, nació y se crió en Maui Hawaii. Cuando no está estudiando literatura española e inglesa, trabaja como editora de poesía para The Wellesley Review. Ha ganado el Premio  Wellesley College's Florence Annette Wing Prize for Poetry y ya ha sido publicada en Vagabond City y Fractal. Si pudiera volver atrás en el tiempo, tomaría una copa con los surrealistas españoles.

SI UNA NOCHE DE INVIERNO UN VIAJERO

La miel cayó en mi té como la sangre

silencioso, balbuciente por la viscosidad,

último temblor de gotas deslizándose

dentro del abismo de un lago en miniatura.

Fuera, en una noche de invierno

agrietada por un frío temprano

llegó el tren, un rugido de las tinieblas

que pensé que sería el viento

impulsándose sin parar en la oscuridad.

Botella invertida, esperando un goteo de dulzura,

pensé en ti,

tiritando, un prodigio,

viajando a través de tu propia noche

de invierno corriendo tan rápido

que sólo tú podrías ser sangre,

sólo tú podrías ser el viento.

Versión de Carlos Alcorta.

IF ON A WINTER’S NIGHT A TRAVELER

The honey fell into my tea like blood

Silent, humming with viscosity,

last shaking drops sliding

into an abyss of miniature lake.

Outside, in a winter night

that cracked with early cold

came the train,

a roar of darkness

that I thought must be the wind

endlessly exhaling

into the blackness.

Bottle inverted, waiting for dripping sweetness,

I thought of you,

shivering, golden,

traveling through your own winter’s night

streaming by so fast

that you could only be blood

could only be the wind.

Publicado en Fractal, December 2015

Clementine 

“We're going to be man slayers,” 

you told me, fox eyes glimmering. 

We were nine, on the playground. 

I knew you would be, 

with your sharp, fast grin 

and trickster ways. 

Already you were revolutionary. 

You moved through the woods like a sprite 

daring and limber among the sweet-smelling eucalyptus 

as we searched for fairies among the leaves. 

You were already one of them, 

leaving me, all gangly limbs and confusion, 

to worship your glow.

Six years later, 

and you're smoking out your bedroom window 

beautiful in the late night, 

long thin fingers and the sharp curve 

of your shoulders 

cutting into the blackness. 

I, uneasy child, 

sat on the carpet watching you 

amidst your magazine clippings 

and The Pixies playing quietly, 

listening to your tales of sexual awakening 

and blurry drug highs. 

I thought that Clementine, 

the name that was supposed to be yours, 

would have suited you better. 

You, in your mystery 

were lost to me, gone to where I couldn't follow.

You found the cigarette on the ground 

as we walked in the cool dusk. 

“Smell it,” you said, “it's cloves.” 

We walked 

and you told me of your latest writing. 

You wrote these stunning, raw stories 

that spoke from your veins 

about people like you, 

rough and in love among pills 

and smoke. 

I always wondered, though, why 

you wrote about those sad lonely boys 

when you should write of 

spiraling, iridescent you. 

You were a thousand stories. 

Even craving a high you were still like magic.

I don't see you much these days. 

But every time I paint my lips 

red like blood, 

ready to slay, 

I think of you 

and your scattered pages. 

I'm dangerous now, like you taught me. 

I smell eucalyptus and cloves 

and think of us together 

as I walk into the dusk, alone, 

war paint on, 

fox eyes glimmering.

Bruised Fruits of the Holy Spirit

I’d never been dissected before,

but that night I learned

how to peel myself apart

under a bruised and yellow moon.

I’d been too young to know

the exposed bellies of fruit

            pits glistening raw

            with juice and sorrow,

but I became a woman

with a pomegranate heart.

Set me out alone on the streets

            as I bleed ruby seeds

and I’ll tell you what it’s like to be consumed.

It feels like thunder shaking the apple tree

            skins shivering

like eyes waiting for your flesh to ripen,

open hungry stares dripping dark.

They pluck out the seeds of my heart

            one by one

and under a false sun I sour 

in profane communion. 

Migrating Bird

I’m not sure where my home is anymore. Growing up it was waves moaning in the dark, salt digging into my tender lips, over-ripe lilikoi falling onto the driveway. I was too pale, watching the dark radiance of exposed legs and breasts soft and round as mangoes, sprouted like magic on a sweet sixteen. I was never a yell-out-the-window girl, catcalls crashing onto sun-bleached and cracked pavement, a bitter symphony among the reggae and ninety-degree heat. I drove and drove under skies so thick with stars you could barely see the moon. Everything was so green I felt my tongue rotting. Mold crept over my shoes, the salt in my hair drove me to madness. Now my second home is four seasons. Fall, electrically cool, winter silent and trembling over the lake, spring like I’ve never seen it, shocking me into tempestuous frenzy. I go running back to warm, back to bare feet on burning roads. I watch billowing clouds of burning cane sugar settling, breathless as hope, on the horizon. The tsunami sirens wail, and I sweat fruit juices, crown myself with orchids and tears—it’s time to cross the ocean now.

Little Girl Lover

Loving you was like waiting for rain.

If we had loved each other,

I know exactly how it would have been:

sharpened kisses, sharpened loss.

You, taking to the sea,

I, too young, too wanting,

tongue riddled with bee stings

over your smile.

I used to think it would be

            a jacaranda tree love,

            baptized in purple flowers,

set to the thickening air

of a late-May Sunday,

storm clouds gathering like a blessing.

I thought it would be breathless

and blue--

how beautiful it was that you could never be mine,

as distant as the moon,

filling my head with spring longing.

I cast myself 

as the patron saint of missing you

            in the hot dusk

            of early summer

sang hymns to your eyes,

your absence,

your breathless hope of rain.

I have different loves now,

loves like honey,

sweet and bleeding,

            up-against-the-wall-

            on-a-Tuesday-loves.

I’m a bit less of a child now,

smarter lover, a better sinner,

perusing the raw taste of lightning

bright and hungry,

on my parched lips.

My love is gold and melting on my tongue,

electric on my fingertips.

I’ve left my saintly waiting behind,

now I’m a witch to burn,

heretic, my soul on fire.

I’m still afraid that one day I’ll kiss you,

            if only to taste the ocean,

            if only to taste the rain in your eyes,

let you extinguish me,

carve out a space in my skull again

and send me back to my altar. 

The end is coming, I know,

and even though I don’t pray anymore,

I beg God that when we say goodbye,

you will not peel me back to my core,

and smile. 

.