inercias

Me he despertado con Costello sin motivo aparente. Mañana de domingo, silencio, aire acondicionado, persianas semibajadas, ríos de luz y sol en el exterior.

Me deprimen los domingos, dice el niño de diez años, aún tumbado en la cama. Luego, ante el recordatorio de que está de vacaciones, añade que es la inercia del curso, la costumbre de que al final del fin de semana sigue un lunes. Inercias. El sólido que coge velocidad y no hay quien lo pare. La mujer del amante de Anne. Sigo cogiendo a Ben Clark como base.

For my lover, returning to his wife
Anne Sexton

She is all there.
She was melted carefully down for you
and cast up from your childhoodger
cast up from your one hundred favorite aggies.
She has always been there, my darling.
She is, in fact, exquisite.
Fireworks in the dull middle of February
and as real as a cast-iron pot.
Let's face it, I have been momentary.
A luxury. A bright red sloop in the harbor.
My hair rising like smoke from the car window.
Littleneck clams out of season.

She is more than that. She is your have to have,
has grown you your practical your tropical growth.
This is not an experiment. She is all harmony.
She sees to oars and oarlocks for the dinghy,
has placed wild flowers at the window at breakfast,
sat by the potter's wheel at midday,
set forth three children under the moon,
three cherubs drawn by Michelangelo,
done this with her legs spread out
in the terrible months in the chapel.

If you glance up, the children are there
like delicate balloons resting on the ceiling.

She has also carried each one down the hall
after supper, their heads privately bent,
two legs protesting, person to person,
her face flushed with a song and their little sleep.
I give you back your heart.
I give you permission –
for the fuse inside her, throbbing
angrily in the dirt, for the bitch in her
and the burying of her wound –
for the burying of her small red wound alive –

for the pale flickering flare under her ribs,
for the drunken sailor who waits in her left pulse,
for the mother's knee, for the stocking,
for the garter belt, for the call –
the curious call
when you will burrow in arms and breasts
and tug at the orange ribbon in her hair
and answer the call, the curious call.

She is so naked and singular
She is the sum of yourself and your dream.
Climb her like a monument, step after step.
She is solid.

As for me, I am a watercolor.
I wash off.

Para mi amante, que regresa con su mujer

Ella está toda allí.
Fue fundida cuidadosamente para ti
y moldeada desde tu infancia,
moldeada desde tus cien edades preferidas.

Siempre ha estado allí, cariño.Ella es, de hecho, exquisita.Fuegos artificiales en el medio mate de febrero
y tan real como una olla de hierro.

Afrontémoslo, he sido pasajera.
Un lujo. Un balandro rojo brillante en el puerto.
Mi pelo ascendiendo como el humo desde la ventanilla del coche.
Almejas fuera de temporada.

Ella es más que eso. Ella es tu tengo que tener,
te ha potenciado tu crecimiento práctico, tu crecimiento tropical.Ella no es un experimento. Ella es toda armonía.
Ella vigila que el bote tenga remos y escálamos,

ha puesto flores silvestres en la ventana para el desayuno,
se sienta junto al torno a mediodía,
parió tres hijos bajo la luna,
tres querubines dibujados por Miguel Ángel,

lo hizo con las piernas abiertas
en los meses terribles en la capilla.

Si miras hacia arriba, los niños están allí
como delicados globos descansando en el techo.

También ha llevado a cada uno pasillo abajo
después de la cena, con sus cabezas ligeramente dobladas,
dos piernas protestando, cara a cara,
el rostro de ella ruborizada por una canción y el sopor de ellos.

Te devuelvo tu corazón.Te doy permiso -

para que te fundas dentro de ella, vibrando
iracundo en el barro, para la bruja que hay en ella
y para enterrar su herida -
para enterrar viva su pequeña herida roja -

para la pálida bengala centelleante bajo sus costillas
para el marinero borracho que espera en su pulso izquierdo,
para la rodilla de madre, para sus medias,
para su liguero, para la llamada -

la extraña llamada
cuando te metas en su madriguera de brazos y pechos
y tires de la cinta naranja de su pelo
y contestes a la llamada, la extraña llamada.

Ella está tan desnuda y es tan singular.
Ella es la suma de ti y tu sueño.
Escálala como un monumento, paso a paso.

Ella es sólida.

Por lo que a mí respecta, yo soy una acuarela.
Salto con agua.

All This Useless Beauty

Elvis Costello

It's at times such as this she'd be tempted to spit
If she wasn't so ladylike
She imagines how she might have lived
back when legends and history collide
So she looks to her prince finding he's so charmingly
slumped at her side
Those days are recalled on the gallery wall
And she's waiting for passion or humour to strike

What shall we do, what shall we do with all this useless beauty?
All this useless beauty

Good Friday arrived, the sky darkened on time
'Til he almost began to negotiate
She held his head like a baby and said "It's okay if you cry"
Now he wants her to dress as if you couldn't guess
He desires to impress his associates
But he's part ugly beast and Hellenic deceased
So she finds that the mixture is hard to deny

She won't practice the looks from the great tragic books
That were later disgraced to face celluloid
It won't even make sense but you can bet
If she isn't a sweetheart or plaything or pet
The film turns her into an unveiled threat

Nonsense prevails, modesty fails
Grace and virtue turn into stupidity
While the calendar fades almost all barricades to a pale compromise
And our leaders have feasts on the backsides of beasts
They still think they're the gods of antiquity
If something you missed didn't even exist
It was just an ideal -- is it such a surprise?