SMOKE IN THE AIR

 

My brother Michael who I never knew

has come to lie down in my hammock

Light honey coloured eyes and carnivorous smile

Thickset body fit for debauchery

Like all of us he smokes to deaden his hands

and the smoke makes shapes in the air

something like a distress signal

My mother didn’t cry the night he died

I think   Before he drifts off with the smoke

that maybe I would have loved him

 

Translated by Mike Baynham from a poem in Spanish by Raúl Gómez Jattín. La hamaca nuestra/Our Hammock. Raúl Gómez Jattín: a queer Colombian poet in translation

 

Original text in Spanish

 

EL HUMO SOBRE EL AIRE

 

Mi hermano Miguel a quien no conocí

ha venido a acostarse en mi hamaca

Ojos claros de miel y sonrisa carnívora

Ancho cuerpo para el abandono

Como todos nosotros fuma para matar las manos

y el humo describe sobre el aire

algo así como una señal de desventura

Mi madre no lloró la noche de su muerte

Pienso   Antes de que se marche con el humo

que quizá lo hubiera amado

 

Poema de Raúl Gómez Jattín

Copyright © Rubén Gómez Jattín