G-NT3806KSJP

No One, Absolutely No One



 

The cliffs,
you can see them
no matter where you are in this town,
                           sun-rusted,
almost a sexual tension in having them there always to look at
             sidelong,
you’re bound for them
wherever you’re walking with your flatland shoes
and a bag of tiny bananas,
                        the chafe
of your contact
lenses against the ball of your vision, the cliffs accepting
light all day long on no
conditions, seeming to have fought    
             no wars,
not to have hurt anyone in pursuit of their power,
but what do you
know, many people might give you a quick
                        once-over
and assume the same, if
for entirely opposite reasons, small
as you are.
            Here
there’s a season of fluted flowers
that can be eaten, a baby
scorpion pinned to a roll of toilet paper,
a thing the cliffs hew with their own shadows
                          before death
by sun, and if
you couldn’t do any of it ever
again, move your legs, sing, fuck, brush stray amaranth
from the tabletop, if you had to give those up and keep just one,
            you would talk,
you would tell you
all about it.

Robin Myers lives in Mexico City and works as a translator. Her poems have recently appeared in the Yale Review, the North American Review, Pigeon Pages, Moist Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. She writes a monthly column on literary translation for Palette Poetry.