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>> The next poem I'm going to read is a poem I
dedicated to -- It was written a long time ago.

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It belongs to my book Segunda persona
and it's a poem I wrote to my sister.

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It's a rather long poem and it's a poem about
memory, about how living the same things,

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we remember very different things and every
time my sister and I would get together

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and remember some experience, something
that happened to us in childhood,

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she would always remember something
that I didn't remember and something

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that was even worse than that, she would
always include herself in memories of mine

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where she wasn't -- I'm sure she wasn't there.

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She--I thought was a strange habit of hers.

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In a sense, this poem has to do with memory, how
one remembers and how one breaks down memories

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and how one takes advantage
of memories, as well.

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So it's called Homenaje a Kim.

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My sister's name was Kim.

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>> La experiencia de un día no es nada.

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Cruzo el puente hundido en la lengua del
río que discurre con un agua angosta,

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mentirosa y trama con su cargamento de basura,
algún color insólito en la superficie,

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alguna corriente transitoria
que rebote en los bordes,

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con un ruido insostenible, breve, eficaz.

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He visto poco hasta ahora.

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Lo transcurrido ayer y antier, el lastre, peso
y rodio de algunos actos y de algunos hechos.

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Las huellas de un estilo enorme que se
fue diluyendo en unos cuantos ademanes,

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menos de la persona que de la genealogía.

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La compasión de un ambiente
sin aristas, sin recovecos,

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despejado como el paisaje marino que vislumbré
cuando oí la palabra puerto por primera vez.

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¿Cómo decirlo?

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Todo reverbera en algún punto de la voluntad.

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Ahí está y cede ante la abstracción.

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La primera piel con la que vino disfrazado el
pensamiento, al principio de la edad obediente,

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de la adolescencia ruinosa y deliberada,

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cuando se detuvo en mi nombre con las preguntas
canónicas, el titubeo primigenio, adánico,

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y concedió un sentido prematuro
antes de retirarse.

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Recordando todo, en vísperas del regreso,
recordar las escenas en el cuarto oscuro,

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las fotos improbables, el menguado talle, el
escote donde [inaudible] una promesa para quien,

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como ir tejiendo un sudario a fuerza
de repetir las mismas historias,

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de encadenar certezas que han ido
creciendo como un segundo cuerpo,

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dispuesto también a la decadencia.

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Anécdotas que socavan la cronología al imponer
un orden o un desorden que nadie percibió y

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además cómo se mira hacia allá la infancia,
por ejemplo, reducida a unos cuantos trazos,

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poca densidad plástica, un esbozo apenas, como
el cuerpo que atravesó las nubes esta mañana,

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un zigzag negro, portentoso, fugaz.

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O las voces de los adultos que avanzaban
lentamente como enjambre de insectos entre las

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vigas del sol, las campanas de la
iglesia prohibida por mi padre ateo,

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la santidad de los pasillos de la penumbra
fresca que me susurraba al oído cosas suaves.

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Lo perdimos todo.

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Casas, terrenos, negocios.

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Aquella cowgirl de Minnesota
en su rancho de Topilejo,

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borracha con algún policía de la zona.

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Aquella mujer tenía en los labios
un mapa deshecho por la intemperie.

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Juan, la silla.

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Fue cayendo con sus piernas
infinitas que giraron como aspas,

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se atoraron en la pata de un banco,

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sacaron chispas con las espuelas de plata
hasta tocar el suelo definitivamente.

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Así murieron mis híbridos.

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[Inaudible] que la voluntad se adiestra a solas
para obrar en su propia contra, animal extraño,

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tentacular, amorfo y puro, ubicuo o simultáneo.

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Nuestra donde estoy y donde pienso, pero permea
la burda causalidad de cualquier itinerario y la

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memoria, la mía, que arrastra una
larga cola olvidada por la evolución.

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Mira hacia el puente nuevo por la arena de
los adoquines va pasando la vida, como dicen.

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>> Notice how artfully we readjust our mics.

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We've been practicing.

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Homage to Kim.

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A day's experience is nothing, I cross the
bridge plunged in the river's tongue that flows

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with an arrow of deceitful water weaving its
load of trash into, at a natural surface hue,

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a transitory current lapping the banks
with an untenable brief, efficient sound.

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Haven't seen much up to now, what
happened yesterday and the day before,

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the ballast, flotsam and jetsam
of certain deeds and certain facts,

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the traces of an enormous
style watered down with time

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to a few civilities, less
personal than genealogical.

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Compassion of an atmosphere with nowhere
to hide, edgeless, utterly cloudless,

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like the seascape I glimpsed when I
heard the word harbor for the first time.

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How can I say it?

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Everything reverberates around some point of
will, there it is yielding to abstraction,

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the first skin disguising thought at the
beginning of the obedient age that ruinous

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and delivered adolescence when a primeval,
adanic indecision stopped at my name,

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asked the canonical questions and offered
a premature meaning before it withdrew.

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Remembering it all on the eve of my return,
remembering the scenes in the darkroom

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and probable photographs, nipped waist,
neckline winking a promise, for whom?

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Like weaving a shroud by repeating the
same old stories, connecting certainties

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that have grown bit by bit like a
second body, equally subject to decay.

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Anecdotes that undercut chronology, imposing
an order or disorder no one perceives.

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And besides, how to look back?

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Childhood, for example, reduced to a sketch.

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Little death, barely an outline, like the
crow passing through the clouds this morning.

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Marvelous, black, disappearing zigzag or the
adult voices advancing slowly like a swarm

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of insects among the sun's rafters.

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The church bells forbidden by my atheist father,
holiness in the cool half shadowed hallways,

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whispering soft things in my ear.

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We lost everything.

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Houses, land, business.

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That Minnesota cowgirl on her Topilejo
ranch, getting drunk with some local cop.

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That woman wore on her lips a
map defaced by the open air.

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Juan, the chair.

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Then she was falling, her endless legs whirling
like a fan caught up in the base of a bench,

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striking sparks with her silver spurs
before finally coming to rest on the floor.

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And so, my hybrids died at last.

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Then what?

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Our will trains in solitude,
learns to work against itself.

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Strange animal, tentacular,
amorphous, impure, ubiquitous

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or simultaneous, not where
I am or where I think.

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It permeates the crude causality
of any itinerary and memory, mine,

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dragging the long tail that
evolution overlooked.

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Look, by the new bridge, the sandy
cobbles, a life is passing by, as they say.