Pool
by Irene Gómez-Castallano
Translation by J.G. McClure
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Already you know it doesn’t matter
how many laps you swim today, how well you move the pencil of your body between the lines in silence. 15, 30, 54, it doesn’t matter. No one is listening as you bob your head, rhythmic, harmonious, mute. When you swim everything flows, dominated by your arms. Your tongue spits only silences. Wordless, you are beautiful and your hair leaves its marks above the verses of the water, not drowning in the waves’ enjambment. You like your smooth somersault, how it keeps your liquid body moving. The pool is deaf but knows to listen. Love this—the water lapping your smooth and lonely body, its tense marine joy. Words are anemones that blink at being spoken. You would drown them with your kisses. No one sees the dark calligraphy trapped between the water, the tiles glazed like stars. Stay under. Everything is beautiful, safe in silent bubbles. These thoughts of yours— they are so beautiful before they break, before you speak and they emerge, trade their tails for legs and learn to live ashore. 20 20, 30, 64. It doesn’t matter because as much as you swim, as much as you breathe to the rhythm of the water, always this fishhook stays caught in both your lips. It doesn’t matter how many silent lines you write upon the water. Your tongue will twist the hook. Your words will start to rust the second that they surface. |
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Irene Gómez-Castellano holds a PhD from the University of Virginia and teaches modern and contemporary Spanish literature at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. She is the author of La cultura de las mascaras. Her first poetry collection, Natación (Bokeh Press), won the 2015 Premio Victoria Urbano de Creación. See more at: www.irenegomezcastellano.com
J.G. McClure holds an MFA from the University of California – Irvine. His work appears in Best New Poets, Gettysburg Review, Green Mountains Review, and Birmingham Poetry Review, among others. His first collection, The Fire Lit & Nearing, is forthcoming (Indolent Books, May 2018). See more at: www.jgmcclure.com
J.G. McClure holds an MFA from the University of California – Irvine. His work appears in Best New Poets, Gettysburg Review, Green Mountains Review, and Birmingham Poetry Review, among others. His first collection, The Fire Lit & Nearing, is forthcoming (Indolent Books, May 2018). See more at: www.jgmcclure.com
A 2018 Pushcart Prize nominee, Gómez-Castellano's poem, translated by McClure, can be found in Issue 16 of Glassworks.
