Borges

By MIGUEL-ANGEL ZAPATA

 

Which of the two writes the poem?

He who sleeps waking with the cypresses
of India or you who live enamored
of the streets of Buenos Aires


Which of the two writes the poem?

He who teaches classes and loves his
students or he who rides a bicycle
through Long Island parks without
thinking of coming back

Who writes the poem?

He who thinks that to err is his fate
or he who kneels before the sovereign
for not having opened all the books.
Translated by Loren Goodman

 

Miguel-Angel Zapata books include Lumbre de la letra, Escribir bajo el polvo, El cielo que me escribe, Cuervos, Los muslos sobre la grama, the bilingual A Sparrow in the House of Seven Patios, and Fragmentos de una manzana y otros poemas.

Loren Goodman is the author of Famous Americans, Suppository Writing, and New Products.

Click here to purchase Issue 03

Borges

Related Posts

cover of HEIRLOOM

March 2025 Poetry Feature: Catherine-Esther Cowie’s Heirloom

CATHERINE-ESTHER COWIE
Her eye-less eye. My long / longings brighten, like tinsel, the three-fingered / hand. Ashen lip. To exist in fragments. / To exist at all. A comfort. / A gutting. String her up then, / figurine on the cot mobile. / And I am the restless infant transfixed.

Tomato on tomato plant

A Tomato Behind a Glass Cage

SARAH WU
Through the glass, we watch her pour a pale yellow substance from a small white bucket. It splashes against spots of red tomatoes. She’s using urine! the alumna says excitedly. I wonder at how easily this old woman in the glass cage has become foreign. How ancient, and how strange.

Dispatches from Mullai Nilam, Marutha Nilam, and Neithal Nilam

VIJAYALAKSHMI
There is fire everywhere, / both inside and outside. / Unaware of the intensity of the fire, / they maintain silence / like the serenity of a corpse. / From the burning fire / bursts out a waterfall tainted in red. / All over the shores have bloomed / the flaming lilies of motherhood.