Tres seasons
1. I know how she does it:
“¡Look at how I stand
out from the crowd!
My unique uniqueness un resplandor
around my crown”
She makes the most of every piece,
wastes not one.
She seams together the debris
to beautiful, coherent whole
She creates, creaks open the door
into which a trap, a trip
across the mushy fields;
a place can only take her so far
Trip white Fergus, silent Fergus,
snow on Kelvingrove.
La línea negra de sus párpados
rasguea sus ojos a la chinoise
Y donde los árboles hicieron su lento striptease
revelando una cumbre horizontal de luces
the light recedes over the white hills
the rain punctures the snow, dalmationing
Y el hiato entre mis cariadas muelas
Dice, let me say, without irony:
dip your fingers in the clay
in the early days we had only ourselves.
2. Ella tiene diamantes incrustados en los lagrimales.
Por eso la quieren más que a mí.
Por eso y por los rayos verdes de su photocopy machine.
(And for saying yes cuando digo no
not really, to be on my own.)
Ella tiene, como iba diciendo, la boca
llena de murciélagos.
Cuando sonríe las alas se extienden,
acarician dientes.
Por eso la quieren más que a mí.
Sus ojos, por otro lado,
de verde-cielo se van haciendo cafés
con las hojas en otoño.
Era halloween, por ejemplo, when the bats
leapt out of her mouth.
She almost died in her sleep.
I was still green.
3. Her hair is a forest in flames.
Yesterday, if i remember well
la post office was a parranda where all parcels were opened.
I armed myself against her beauty.
I laughed out loud.
Juana Adcock
Juana Adcock (Monterrey, 1982) is a poet and translator. She published Manca (Tierra Adentro, 2014), later translated into English by Robin Myers (Argonautica, 2019). Her English-language collection Split (Blue Diode Press, 2019) was named a Poetry Book Society Choice and was included in the Guardian's Best Poetry of 2019, and her book I Sugar the Bones (Out-Spoken Press, 2024) was shortlisted for both the Forward Prize and the Saltire Award for best poetry collection. She has participated in numerous international festivals, and her work has been translated into more than 10 languages, including Hungarian, Latvian, Slovak, Catalan, and Polish. She is co-editor of Temporary Archives: Poetry by Women in Latin America (Arc Publications / Edge Hill University Press). Her translation work includes Laura Wittner’s Translation of the Route (Bloodaxe/PTC, 2024) and Hubert Matiuwaa’s The Dogs Dreamt, both of which were recognized with prestigious PEN Translates awards.
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