"diamond & rust," a poem in Spanish by Catalina Vergara, translated by Tiffany Troy

diamond & rust

1

mars is a crummy planet
mars is a
desert of
rust

between metal in
the void of
mars’ sky
a sign written in the fifth
dimension, speaking like
a ghost

silence mars
desert of
rust

on mars, the photo captures an underwater tide an alien
captures mars’ devil
a fissure an enormous
monster

through paper, people look at
mars blue Earth
mother Venus
glimmering
while in the sixth dimension of mars, joan
baez re-writes
silence

2

on this night, on this earth, you loosen
one hundred screws in my throat
draining out
the fever of the stars
and (your) absence
enclosed by the letters of your name,
embroidered in blood
the timbre of your voices
though i don’t know
how to return
or write
i arise, amid
crude oil
waves in a lake of diamonds and
rust
sometimes mute in your home below
a hundred suns kindle my desires and the
absence
the shadow the
whisper the
word
in the sounds of the sewing machine, i listen for
what you’re saying
about me

----

1

marte es un planeta
inhabitable marte es un
desierto
de óxido

entremedio del metal en el vacío
en el cielo de marte hay un letrero
escrito en la quinta dimensión
que dice
como un fantasma

silencio marte
desierto de óxido

en marte se capta un maremoto subterráneo y un robot ajeno capta al
diablo en marte
hay un abismo un monstruo enorme

y se miran las personas a través de un papel en este
marte azul Tierra
madre Venus brillante
en esta sexta dimensión de marte joan baez
reescribe
el silencio.

2

en esta noche en este mundo
clavas cien tornillos en mi garganta me drena
el calor de las estrellas
y esta ausencia (de ti)
bordo con sangre las letras de tu nombre y las agujas
recrean
el dictado de tus voces pero no sé
volver
ni escribir
despierto en corrientes de petróleo en un lago
de colores y
muerte y
a veces despierto silencio en tu casa bajo cien
soles calcinando mis sentidos y la ausencia
la sombra el susurro
la palabra
en sintetizadores busco lo
que dices
sobre mí.

-----

Poet's and Translator's Note

Catalina Vergara’s diamond & rust is inspired by themes of love and memory in Joan Baez’s eponymous song. This love is queer, which means foreign, drawing from the complex legacies of American imperialism and the overthrow of the Chilean democracy under Allende. Unlike the authoritarian state under Pinochet, which establishes the rigid role of the mother as a nurturing agent of the state, the feminist speaker in Catalina’s poetry collection often defies such state-prescribed expectations. The speaker speaks of love as bursting forth in emanations, feverish in the bitter taste it leaves. It is no coincidence that these poems were written in a workshop taught by Raul Zurita, a leading Chilean author and a member of Colectivo Acciones de Arte, a Chilean activist group of artists who incorporated the “what could not be said” (lo que no dice) into performance and and protest against the Pinochet regime. Catalina’s feminine Venus as juxtaposed with the masculine Mars takes on renewed significance. The speaker, rooted in Mars’ blue introspection, peers into a whirl of gross coffee, at a loss of meaning making.

Catalina Vergara’s diamond & rust, situated after the beacon of Chilean democracy but looking back to how outer space and the intergalactic can teach us about our humanity and inhumanity seems to us a good fit for Senal. Rather than being didactic, Catalina’s narrator paints scenes with color and sound. A reader who looks and listens closely enough, will be able to make out the embroidering of bloody letters and hear what the esses are telling you.

Catalina Vergara is a writer who was born in Santiago de Chile in 1998. She studied Creative Literature and now studies Pedagogy in Creative Literature at the Universidad Diego Portales. “Diamond and Rust” is written in a poetry workshop taught by Raúl Zurita, and is translated by Tiffany Troy. Catalina explores themes that stretch reality and the limits of what is perceptible through an occult and queer framework to express emotions in her lyric.

Tiffany Troy is a poet, translator, and critic. Based in Flushing, Queens, her poems revolve around her dreams and the dreams she carries.