It was the great fog adder
that descended down to my bosom
city-flower bled dry
in the evening circus

Ovations
tight-packed madness in Candlestick Park
and the fog’s heavy cream
swelling in my throat

The golden yellow and black thighs
shone in the afternoon light

It’s madness

The lady-dragon on the corner
where the pupil goes to great lengths

The sleepless world
anxious in public libraries

Solitude up in the gods

Lovely rainbow
you had a gentle way of speaking
and in your urgency
you were convoluted as always

And all that haze
the city that you hated, muchacha,
I could feel it in your eyelids

The shadows
and the splendor of the hills
slowly strangulated
so that nothing there withers away

You couldn’t have been so jealous —could you?—
in the face of such phosphorescent evil
behind my puffy eyes

The sea was there
teeming rich with malignant vapors
and I remember that you hated
how we never walked,
hand-in-hand
through Chinatown

We inhabited
a cosmopolitan vessel
between Austrian neighbors
and the enormous drop to the Bay

Hoarse lights
slimy saxophone
plowing the darkness of the forgotten

One afternoon the Brazilian rhythms
in the orange tree park

And grotesques of every stripe and color
bound by their sweat
facing the sea, facing the hippopotamuses
and the blue temple of delirium

You were my amulet
in the long irreverent night

Round with fog and oblivion

xv

Texto original (Original text)

Era la gran víbora de niebla
que descendía hasta el pecho
ciudad-flor desangrada
en el circo de la noche

Ovaciones
locura compacta en Candlestick Park
y la espesa nata de la niebla
creciendo en mi garganta

Los muslos dorados amarillos
y negros brillaban en la tarde

Qué locura

El sexo-dragón de las esquinas
donde la pupila se afana

El mundo insomne
ansioso en las bibliotecas públicas

Soledad de galerías

Lindo iris
tenías una forma suave al hablar
y en tu apremio
estabas enredada como siempre

Y toda esa neblina
la ciudad que odiabas muchacha
podía sentirlo en tus párpados

Las sombras
y el esplendor de las colinas
lentamente estrangulado
para que nada ahí marchitase

No podías estar tan celosa ¿no es cierto?
frente a tal maldad fosforescente
tras mis ojeras

El mar estaba ahí
acaudalado de vapores malignos
y recuerdo cuánto detestabas
la ciudad
que nunca caminamos
cogidos de la mano
en el Barrio Chino

Habitamos
una nave cosmopolita
entre vecinos austríacos
y la caída enorme de la bahía

Luces roncas
saxofón legamoso
roturando la noche de los olvidados

Una tarde los ritmos del Brasil
en el parque de las naranjas

Y esperpentos de todos los colores
amarrados por su sudor
frente al mar frente a los hipopótamos
y el templo azul del desvarío

Eras mi amuleto
en la larga noche irreverente

Ronda de niebla y olvido

Matthew Byrne is a writer and translator who holds an MA in sociology from the University of California, Riverside. His work has appeared in Guernica, Current Affairs magazine, Gulf Coast, The Brooklyn Rail, and other outlets. He is based in the San Francisco Bay Area. 

Róger Lindo is a Salvadoran poet and journalist most popular for his writing in Los Angeles’s La Opinión, the largest Spanish-language newspaper in the United States. He is the author of one collection of poetry, Los infiernos espléndidos (1998), and two novels: El perro en la niebla (2008) and La isla de los monos (2016).