And then I'm going to end on one final one.
So Rebecca Seiferle did a great translation
of Vallejo's Black Heralds.
And that's my favorite translation.
And so in it, there's a poem where the poet
is addressing the beloved.
And so it was after reading that poem, and I have a habit of--
I find a poem that does something,
I write it down by hand.
And then I keep it in my pocket, and I carry it around.
And I don't have a lot of free minutes during my day,
because I do language work.
But if I'm waiting for an elder to be ready, or to do--
you know, so I'll pull it out.
And I don't have time to bring out a book,
but I'll just carry that poem.
So I carried that poem with me for quite a while--
a few weeks.
And so, this is what happened the next time
I sat down to write.
And it was a direct result of her translation.
"Ode to the Beloved's Hips"
"Bells are they, shaped on the eighth day.
Silvered percussion in the morning, are the morning.
Swing, switch, sway, hold the day away a little longer,
a little slower, a little easy.
Call to me, I want to rock, I, I want to rock, I,
I want to rock right now.
So to them I come-- struck dumb, chime blind,
tolling with a throat full of Hosanna.
How many hours bowed against this infinity of blessed
Trinity, communion of pelvis, sacrum, femur, my mouth,
terrible angel, everlasting novena, ecstatic devour.
Oh, the places I have laid them--
knelt and scooped the amber fast honey from their openness.
Ah Muzen Cab's hidden temple of Tulúm,
licked smooth the sticky of her hip.
Heat thrummed ossa coxae.
Lambent slave to ilium and ischium--
I never tire to shake this wild hive.
Split with thumb, the sweet dripped comb,
hot hexagonal whole, dark diamond--
to its nectar dervished queen.
Meanad tongue, come drunk, hum tranced, honey polar,
for her hips I am strummed, song, and succubus.
They are the sign, hip, and the cosign, a great book,
the body's Bible opened up to its good news gospel.
Alleluias, Ave Maria's, Madre Mia's, Ay-ay-ay's, ay dios
mios, and hip-hip-hooray.
Cult of Coccyx, culto de cadera, oracle of orgasm,
Rorschach's riddle-- what do I see?
Hips, innominate bone, wishbone, Orpheus bone,
transubstantiation bone, hips of bread, wine wet thighs,
say the word and healed, I shall be.
Bone butterfly, bone wings, bone Ferris wheel, bone basin,
bone throne, bone lamp.
Apparition in the bone grotto, sixth mystery,
slick rosary bead, déme de gracia of a decade in this
garden of carmine flower.
Exile me to the enormous orchard of Alcinous, spiced fruit,
laden tree, in paradise me, because God, I am guilty.
I am sin frenzied and full of teeth for a pear
upon apple upon fig.
More than all that, are your hips.
They are a city.
They are a kingdom.
Troy, the hollowed horse and army of desire,
thirty soldiers in the belly, two in the mouth-- beloved,
your hips are the war.
At night, your legs, love, are boulevards
leading me beggared and hungry to your candy
house, your Baroque mansion.
Even when I am late and the tables
have been cleared in the kitchen of your hips, let me eat cake.
Oh, constellation of pelvic glide, every curve a luster,
a star.
More infinite still, your hips are cosmic,
are universe, galactic carousel of burning comets
and big, big bangs.
Millennium Falcon, let me be your Solo--
we always find the nerds on that one.
Oh, hot planet, let me circumambulate.
Oh, spiral galaxy, I am coming for your dark matter.
Along calles de tus muslos I wander.
Follow the parade of posts like a drum line.
Descend into your Plaza del Toros,
hands throbbing, Miura bulls.
Your arched hips, ay, mi torera.
Down the long corridor, your wet walls
lead me like a traje de luces.
All glitter, glowed, I am the animal
born to rush your rich, red mulattos.
Each breath, each sigh, each groan--
a hooked horn of want.
My mouth at your inner thigh, here, I must enter you.
Mi pobre Manolete, press and part you like a wound.
Make the crowd pounding and the grandstand of your iliac crest
rise up in you and cheer.
Thank you so much.