Translated from the Spanish by Ana Rodriguez Gallego
The Tower
vincenzo sulis: hero, traitor,
locked in the tower for twenty years
-over a lie, a slander-
your voice still drifts through the alleys:
runs with the wind, violently howling,
and crying out in the night for your fate,
your roar joins the waves buffeting your tower,
repeating your tears
vincenzo, the traitor, the hero, who cares:
how ironic your misfortune
how ridiculous the merciless destiny...
motherless, godless, and futureless,
saltpeter flowers embroider your shroud
to protect your broken heart
and still you ask yourself:
why, for what, until when,
if only it was freedom
you were adventurous, a smuggler, a tribune:
freedom was your sun and your star
and everyone adored you
until the sting of envy
arrived and sealed you in stone
an island within an island, you alone against the sky:
but your guards don’t realize your island is a ship,
and the belly you were born from,
the watchtower where you see passing
the death of each of your enemies
as the sibyl recites to you their names
you only had a window, but you had so much:
infinite seagulls against the blue sky,
clouds with their deep-sea fish,
the vespertine requiem,
and the sea plowing your misery
taking the daily sun, that red orange
made of blood and honey
that wounds your memory of melancholy
vincenzo sulis, in the prime of life
life stolen and moreover
love:
and now only the wind, its ancient voice
and the dream of freedom
calls at your window
The Stranded Mermaid
eight towers watch over you so that the sea, lovesick, won’t take you yet he returns incessantly to kiss your stone feet and he rocks you and sings ancient songs and he combs your hair intoxicated with seaweeds alghero, lovely prisoner, through your dark veins the wind rambles and recounts its thousand stories in the dead of night: like a nursemaid it covers you with its sheet for you to dream, and not notice the rain clinging to your sleepless lights as he begs you to use for your pillow his whisper of foam alghero, stranded mermaid time and saltpeter erase you little by little but still you rise among your walls: you shimmer in your castle, maddalenetta, you flutter in the square of mercy and you climb the bell tower of santa maria to dance with the mistral and the tramontana; wandering the dome of san michele to repeat yourself in its thousand-color mirrors and you descend to inflame you to call your forbidden lover and gave him the salt of your tears alghero, lonely girl, the rain turns you to silver and the sea makes you a song: the sea in love with your silence
Lancelot
the air is cold however it captures the warm taste of a paused shadow and the serpents agitate the air sibilant, they warn you whispering about the rounds of fear: its threat of blood and bile of ash on that clutter of night haunting jungle the air is cold however you wanted the forbidden sword that dwells now in your chest cloud of dust of shattered hearts
Selena Millares was born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Spain) in 1963. She is the author of five books of poetry, including Páginas de arena (Oregon, 2003), Cuadernos de Sassari (Messina, 2013), and Sueños del goliardo: Poemas pintados 2004-2013 (Madrid, 2013). She has also published poems in collective works, as well as novels, short stories and books of theory. Millares is a philologist specialized in Neruda and the avant-garde in Latin America. Since 1996 she has been an associate professor at the Autonomous University of Madrid, the city where she lives. In 2017 she was named a member of the Chilean Language Academy, a cultural institution that ensures the stability of Spanish and minority Chilean languages.
Ana Rodriguez Gallego holds a degree in Hispanic Studies from the Autonomous University of Madrid. She received an MA in Hispanic Literature from the University of Connecticut and now she is pursuing her MA in Hispanic Linguistics from the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she specializes in bilingualism and language processing. She has worked as a translator for refugee families and in 2020 she received the LCL Award in Literary Translation from the University of Connecticut, sponsored by World Poetry Books.
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