Archive of New Mexico Poetry – Marjorie Agosin
As if in a state of
grace,
we went
to Jerome.
We liked the name,
different from others.
We liked hearing people
say Jerome,
where souls reside
and women, like nymphs,
dance at night.
We arrived
at Jerome
like those who arrive at
invented places.
The wind was a moistened kite
murmuring beyond the crevices
of what had been,
when suddenly the women
of the house of joy
signalled to us.
We didn’t know if they were alive
or dead
but they seemed like all women
who wait behind windows
and make signs that smooth out solitudes. Dressed in red,
they seemed like sleeping angels
in the passion of imagined sex.
We entered.
This is Jerome:
a city of dead gardens
and women behind windows.
This town
was like poetry
because here so many things took place
that never happened,
and you kissed my ear
like jasmine resting on the wind.
My heart throbbed
like a forest between your hands
and we were alive
in Jerome.
The women of the house of joy
faded between
the luminosity of venetian blinds.
I tried to invoke the ghosts
but I encountered your hand
and your breath
and knew it was better
to let the dead rest;
you and I
were from the zone where
the living dwell,
where the wind is a flute,
a silence that promises
words of love.
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Como en un estado de
gracia
fuimos
a Jerome.
Nos gustaba el nombre,
ajeno a los otros.
Nos gustaba o r a los dem s
decir Jerome
donde moran las nimas
y las mujeres, como cris lidas,
danzan por la noche.
Llegamos
a Jerome
como quien llega a los lugares
inventados.
El viento era un volant n humedecido
murmurando tras las grietas
de lo que hab a sido,
y de pronto las mujeres
de la casa de la alegr a
nos hac an se as.
No sab amos si eran vivas
o muertas
pero se parec an a todas las mujeres
que aguardan tras las ventanas
y hacen se as para alisar las soledades. Vestidas de rojo
parec an ngeles dormidos
en la pasi n del sexo imaginado.
Entramos.
Este es Jerome:
una ciudad de jardines muertos
y mujeres tras las ventanas.
Este pueblo
era como la poes a
porque aqu suced an y no suced an
tantas cosas,
y tu besaste mi o do
como el jazm n pos ndose sobre el viento.
Lat a mi coraz n
como bosque entre tus manos
y est bamos vivos
en Jerome
Las mujeres de la casa de la alegr a
se desvanec an entre
las luminosidades de las persianas.
Yo intent evocar a los fantasmas
pero me encontr con tu mano
y tu aliento
y supe que era mejor
dejar a los muertos;
y tu y yo
ramos de esa zona donde moran
los vivos,
donde el viento es una flauta,
un silencio que promete
las palabras del amor.
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About the Poet
These poems are from Marjorie Agosin’s Lluvia en el desierto / Rain in the Desert (Sherman Asher Publishing, all rights reserved.) The location is a ghost town where there was a famous brothel.
Born in Chile, Marjorie Agosin is human rigfhts activist who teaches at Wellsley College. She frequently visits and writes about New Mexico.
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