Urban Grid
Esperanza (westward) embarks on its baptismal litany (Pitágoras) miniature forest
an effort well-suited to the meridian (palm fronds and garden cress) no triangles though
Rebsamen (toy castle) Rapunzel has a doorman a blackbird stirs up a mishmash of points on
the map Morena 610 elaborately adorned white (with barbs) a blacksmith’s witty
wordplays
“look at Venus (just don’t touch)”
roses for a bone-dry fountain (deep down) a gluguling up of pigeons you could say “the
bend betrayed me” river rocks (resting at the foot of a tree) burial mound (marimba) pine-
wood door (stumbling) on the carpet of calloused laurel roots cactus (an orange rots
away) thirst (calf aches) daughters- and mothers-in-law (orange-hued yellows) huddling
close (and the overgrown ivy) “eats away at this rock” (its rock-hard imperturbable
conscience)
(422 Yácatas) impossible address (no matter how hard you look) “I’m lost” that’s my
name (between the weeds and grass) ¿is that my name? ask the ants when you put
your head down on the dirt (clods)
Xola (pigeon cabinet) the roof (abacus) one white six soot-gray one black (two white) broadly
brushstroked corner of 232 and Magdalena dark beards (vines) (open window) the
curtain fans the snapshot pale rose (crushed fire) Tejocotes (cardboard balls) acidic
freckles (cake and puff pastry) the texture of plaster Fresas (balls of yarn) Providencia
“another one’s sold around the corner” San Francisco (bamboo) white wall (green teardrops)
water in the air palm tree (infancy) callejón de Nanche (spit out the seeds) “or else a
tree will erupt from the children’s bellies” Cerezas (nor did the three stem from the same
trunk) soaps fried chicken maybe potatoes (saturday serenity) (bonsai) hedge my skein
knots up ¿what’s the way out? turn south then east “then parallel” Diagonal San
Antonio’s the reply (curve) mold on the sidewalk palm tree (insists) soot and litter
(different time zones) “white butterflies” boats that don’t leak are left out to dry (in
abyssal bottles) Theseus “you’ve got to get there before he does” (even if by barge)
parenthesis (vacant lot) caterpillars and tabaquillo (another city) its boardwalk must
be close
Pyrenees (blue) bells buttonholes for shoelaces bobbins for a giant’s thread (dog eyes) tear
ducts burnt out or broken (hopefully not from sadness) drops leaking from a tree wound
or busy insects’ mastication pistachio green (black and red) plays at uncovering the squares
black (face up) three pistachio two red (snake-like) hose Balboa (clattering ceramic
participle) shattered plates and glasses for example white and blue (remind me of the
breeze again) skirts out to dry big round flowerpot hips
Santa Cruz (contractured defense) incandescent street lamp (probable suggestion) concrete
splinters on the ground crane (chain) sink your teeth in casuarina tree (in heat) lets
loose (shrill chillido of an animal torn to pieces) a hang-dog old man (summertime) ¿ruin
or premeditation of the fall? (metaphor) the church with its sickly fingers sheet metal
sunflowers (at the ready) three egg cartons (not toppling) ¿Presidentes again? rolls of
light at the corners of the cables Bélgica pink pinwheel (or sempiternal flower)
Theseus (you’ve really got to get there before him)
Ryan Greene (b. 1994) is a translator, book farmer, and poet from Phoenix, Arizona. He's a co-conspirator at F*%K IF I KNOW//BOOKS and a housemate at no.good.home. His translations include work by Claudina Domingo, Elena Salamanca, Ana Belén López, Giancarlo Huapaya, and Yaxkin Melchy, among others. The three translations featured here in Annulet come from Claudina Domingo's Tránsito/Transit, which was recently released in a bilingual edition by Eulalia Books. Since 2018, he has co-facilitated the Cardboard House Press Cartonera Collective bookmaking workshops at Palabras Bilingual Bookstore. Like Collier, the ground he stands on is not his ground.