Consuelo Martínez Reyes reading ‘Ficciones’

Ficciones
which usually is
a widely known book by Borges
is now this

the thought that San Juan and Africa are not so close together
despite their common
              drought
              enemy
              natural disaster
of people who left
without consent.

We both draw graffiti
a la postmortem.

Los polvos del Sahara nos asfixian
y llegan hasta aquí, tarnishing los carros
con el mismo barro del que estamos hechos
nosotros los inhumanos.

We hear
the whispers coming from the photo
stuck to the fridge door
held together by cheap metal, just like us.

We are
comunes dromedarios,
anélidos,
agua edulcorada por los cuerpos abandonados a su suerte.

But do not worry.
My period is here.
Involuntary blood,
como nosotros,
rogando a los dioses
no reproducirnos
because not all of us can be president
of the united states
or anything else united for that matter

Ficciones
such is the idea that we may reproduce
freely and willingly
or not, if we decided,
because this is not our body,
only land
to be conquered.

Translation of Spanish verses

Los polvos del Sahara nos asfixian
y llegan hasta aquí, tarnishing los carros
con el mismo barro del que estamos hechos
nosotros los inhumanos.

Dust from the Sahara Desert asphyxiates us
and make it here, tarnishing cars
with the same clay with which we, the inhumane, are made

comunes dromedarios,
anélidos,
agua edulcorada por los cuerpos abandonados a su suerte

common dromedaries,
annelids,
water sweetened by the bodies left to fend for themselves

como nosotros,
rogando a los dioses
no reproducirnos

like us,
begging the gods
not to reproduce ourselves

Dr Consuelo Martínez Reyes (San Juan, 1980) is a Puerto Rican writer, translator, and Lecturer in Spanish and Latin American Studies at Macquarie University. She is the author of the short-story collection En blanco [Blank Canvases] (La Pereza, 2018), as well as editor and translator of Not the Time to Stay: The Unpublished Plays of Víctor Fragoso(Centro Press, 2018).