Carte Blanche
And other withered stumps of time
T.S. Eliot
Let’s be sincere.
I’m making a bonfire out of the books you left in. You see the fire. Asymmetric man and
combustible(y) sad, you were the cause of that which I worried for. Appellative, you have an
eye larger than.
Let’s be syntactic.
You passed through the tornado with a bible and an army. You passed through violence
with violence, crying out for liberty, crying out for piety, crying out with.
Let’s be objective.
You can’t take pictures. You have an extra eye. Fo cus. We forfeit to be happy for. Being
happy for being free for being happy for being.
When we were a girl and a Cyclops, everything was picture perfect. You suffered the tide and
I cried out for more eyes for less waves for less sabers for less hands for less tide and for
more.
You said “I never.” I looked at the sun and winked and you became jealous. You said “I want.” You said “the one I want is.” “the girl I want is.” You said.
Let’s be (…) cere.
I bit three finger nails with my eyes to take my revenge on you. I let the black spot on my
back be you. I bit a finger with my dandelion teeth.
You crossed oceans to arrive here. You opened doors. We slackened. I memo. I memoir. I
memorize the banal eco of the door slamming. Last slammed door with which.
I promised not to use the verb to be. Not to use the verb. Not to nibble flesh. Not to
decimate the middle finger. From my right near sighted-hand. From the eye that I pointed
you out with. It’s the wind. I say it is. You said. I say, it is the wind that brings the cold. Like
is the cold that.
is (…).
You are not here.
Translated by Heath Wing
“Carte Blanche” is from the book Epidermia (El Gaviero Ediciones, 2011), which has not yet been translated into English.
You can read and listen to the poem in the original Spanish here.