* A poem by Amparo Arróspide, from “En el oído del viento” (Baile del Sol, 2016). Hers and Robin Ouzman´s translation. *** Can't all poets get a PhD in synesthesia by the University of Columba in New York? Can´t they harvest medallions under the moon? Can´t they work as professors of Punic Sciences? As kindergarten teachers, can´t they work? Can´t they translate their 14th century Chinese concubine colleagues? Can´t they afford to pay for their third self-published volume? Can´t all poets live on air? Can't they rummage, deconstruct , snoop build for themselves a submerged house inhabit a crystal palace? Can´t they repeat over and over the unsaid incite questions of ethical and aesthetic weight dismantle and fragment reality? Can´t they receive writing from a yearning and swift void? From a primordial nothingness? Can´t they mortgage their crystal palace their submerged house? Can´t they rebelliously peddle little stars? Can´t all poor poets steal books? Can´t they read so the complete works by Samuel and Ezra and John by Juana Inés, Alejandra and Gabriela by Anne and Margaret and Stevie by Wallace and Edgar and Charles by Arthur and Paul and Vladimir by Dulce and Marina and Marosa? And etcetera and etcetera and etcetera and etcetera? Can´t all poets add more beauty to beauty and more horror to horror? Can´t they draw maps and routes of the invisible, futuristic city foretold by their dreams? Can´t they pursue the intangible Move towards permanence so that a poem becomes a closed and completed vehicle to treasure a present without behind or beyond? Can't they unfold and transmigrate can't they achieve mindfulness Can´t they stammer forever into everlasting silence?
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