Issue 21
Fall 2019
The Move
Karla Marrufo
Translated by Allison A. deFreese
we arrived at midday,
with our luggage in hand
the sun a cement square
stretching out beneath our feet,
the sky a sharp blow to the face—
a sting of dust,
a scratch on the cheek
syllable by syllable, the valve of honest words
slowly opened:
sewer cistern foreigner neighborhood bedroom
welcome
syllable by syllable, this drip of silent revelations:
hand in hand, we learn to breathe the air,
inhaling only smoke
to savor the sunrise of an unknown city,
to discover it again in dreams,
to promise we will never live on loans
hand in hand, sometimes the world is made whole, and that is enough,
easy as child’s play
while it lasts
hand in hand, the night dissolves with its ghosts, leaving us only the cloak
of an unfinished story
together,
blood pulsing to the heartbeats
of our fear, we learn to remember
out of obligation
out of fondness
out of rage
or by vocation
because this is all there is
we arrived at midday
light as certain birds
the toes of my scuffed sneakers had lost their direction
their sense of smell,
but ventured forward a little anyway
toward blood,
toward the river, now red, unveiling a channel
that leads to the mouth of the sewer
syllable by syllable the excuses flowed:
the height of the building vertigo dangerous
since then and forever
my hand remains alone,
closing in on itself and watching as life
transforms
into dark matter.
About the Author
Karla Marrufo (Mérida, México) holds a Doctorate in Hispanic-American Literature from la Universidad Veracruzana, and recently finished postdoctoral studies at the UNAM (National Autonomous University of México). Her work has been recognized through several prestigious Latin American literary awards, among them: the 2005-2007 National Wilberto Cantón Award in Playwriting (Premio Nacional de Dramaturgia “Wilberto Cantón”) for her play Lluvia para siete insomnes/Rain for Seven Insomniacs; the XVI José Díaz Bolio Poetry Prize (XVI Premio de poesía “José Díaz Bolio”) for La ciudad en ti /The City within You (Centro Cultural ProHispen, 2016); and the 2014 National Dolores Castro in Narration (Premio Nacional de Narrativa “Dolores Castro”), which led to the publication of her novel Mayo/May by the Ayuntamiento de Aguascalientes, México the same year. She also received a fellowship from the Programa de Estímulo a la Creación y al Desarrollo Artístico en Yucatán (the PECDA, or Program for the Expansion and Development of Creativity and the Arts in the Yucatán), which resulted in the publication of her book Mérida lo invisible/Mérida the Invisible (Consejo Editorial de la Secretaría de la Cultura y las Artes de Yucatán, 2013; also published under the title Arquitecturas de lo invisible/ Architecture of the Invisible in its second printing).
About the Translator
Allison A. deFreese’s original work and literary translations have appeared in The New York Quarterly, The Indiana Review, Southwestern American Literature, Borderlands, Asymptote; Southword (Ireland), and Poetry Kanto (Japan). She has two book-length poetry translations, as well as a translation of a text on the Yucatec Maya language, forthcoming in 2020.