BETWEEN COUSINS

 

An acrid smell of butterflies in the air

like a perfume flying from childhood to this moment

miraculously brings back that lunar garden

of childhood slyly showing each other our penises

and with that irresistible surrender we feel

to the first naked body we adore

You mending the kite dismembered by the wind

Me writing to our shared girlfriend

Those urgent love letters full of lies

So she would lend us her bicycle.

 

There’s a sadness in that perfume that wounds me

As if you my scarlet gentleman   Might have forgotten me

As if you my loving and tender boy cousin

Might suddenly have decided wherever you are to abandon

All that was felt and hidden

(Such as one heart within another)

Under the lemon tree which one winter destroyed

And which I remember as vividly as your kisses.

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

 

ENTRE PRIMOS

 

En el aire un acre olor de mariposas

como un perfume que vuela de la infancia a este instante

atrae milagrosamente aquel jardín de luna

donde nuestra niñez se mostraba el sexo con malicia

y con ese sometimiento irresistible que sentimos

por el primer cuerpo desnudo que adoramos

Tú remendando la cometa destrozada por la brisa

Yo escribiéndole a la novia compartida

aquellas urgentes cartas de amor mentido

para que nos prestara su bicicleta

 

Hay una tristeza en el perfume que me hiere

como si tú caballero escarlata Me hubieras olvidado

Como si tú primo enamorado y tierno

de repente hayas decidido abandonar donde te encuentres

todo aquello sentido y ocultado

[Tal un corazón dentro de otro]

bajo el limonero que aniquiló un invierno

y que recuerdo tan vívido como tus besos

 

Poema de Raúl Gómez Jattín

Copyright © Rubén Gómez Jattín