from The Vallejo Cycle

IX

A book at the border of aging,
A book was folded at the jean lip of the skin, at forty.
They took away our heroes,
and we consumed the death of their abilities;
we sweaty with the wait of our bags;
the moon sweat like a beer can;
the dead sweat like the moon.

A book in the Era of Israel,
book, after book, upon book, like dead people.

Poetry of the entry wound, whisper
of the blood as the bullet swims,
Poetry in the user guide
for your fucking heart, mom.
Remainéd the book in its sepulchral mind,
as the earth the earth’s womb,
It got stuck in the collar gap and went
totally infinite. You got married.

Book that sweats its letters while we wait,
the dead sweating letters to sweetheart
sediments in public parks.
Book after book, atop book
in the public park, burning.

*

There was another

In the last one I’d said Vallejo
Had given me a book to translate

From a language only I could speak
Saying everything you needed to hear
To believe everything that I did

In the one before that I said
It’s all the same book anyway
To protect it you must throw it all away:
The poetics of the family annihilator

Like your favorite writer’s favorite athlete
I will leave it all on the field
I will not talk about the Knicks at dinner
I said I will not talk about the Knicks at dinner

Roth said it’s the same book anyway
Pound said “we must remember as he remembered”
And you hated that I said that
I can’t even find where he said it
I said it for nothing, got Put in the Dog House

There was a version where I said something
Unmistakeable, I swear, so unmistakeable
I cannot even hope to say it now; it is impossible
To say it mistakenly, so you’ll just have to trust me

*

XIV

Ojo the eye phone maker of the forgotten bondi
Ojo the poster without PFP
Ojo the evil eye, tattooed on the Australian’s shoulder
Ojo the victim who wants to renew himself
the hobbyist corrections officer
the corrections
Ojo the time on the beach and what it means
the view from the Wonder Wheel
the little critters collected, the leftover tickets
Ojo the science of wrist bones
the carpology of gendered yearning
Ojo the poster that says bring home the hostages
Ojo the eyes blown out on your phone screen
the miraculous advent of new injury
Ojo the loyalty oath you’re asking of me
Ojo they make you pay to see many churches
in Europe too, it’s not some Jew thing just for synagogues
Ojo fallen into dark
Ojo the Atacama
Ojo the country loves you
Ojo don’t let it
Ojo like a deep well we all want to die in

*

Poem with the voice in off
Book with another book voiced over
Life with other life pasted over

Vallejo was in the trees
Watching me

An annoying poet was claiming kinship with a dead guy
He was watching Celan with binoculars
He was learning bad German, not even German
Badly, I did want things rectilinear, I offered
An experience in a verso-recto style
I offered a verso in the recto’s style

This book was once called
Sonnets from the Brazilian Portuguese
Now it is called Altazor

Now they call me Yankee
Call me Andrew
They call me AJ in what we call America
I call you in America from my Spanish sim card
I call you in América from my Argentine sim card
I call it a chip now, I call it a pileta, a remera, a luca, milanga, guita, mina, mango
I don’t call you ———— anymore
I don’t call you at all

*

The Disappeared

I

The blood just wants to talk.
Steeled in the night.
We know that missing girl is naked.
Unplucked from delirium.
Take the Heschel off the shelf.
Take off your clothes.

II

In the salted light,
They dumped the bodies like ashes

In the salted light,
The sea was like the Atacama
I beg myself for fervor
Imagining them in midtown windows

III

I promised you I wouldn’t make things up
They promised he would be right back
I promised I wouldn’t make any art
About the desaparecidos

IV

I interrogate myself
Into sense-making
The men I once wanted
To impress are bathed
In the salted light of the gas fields
The helicopters whirring
Like the moans of the dying; they say
Let’s use his penis as bait
And fish dreams from beneath
The arena

They say
Make art about this
Take off your clothes

*

Poem where that wasn’t how it was
That was how it was
A book project the length of a sentence
A silence as long as your body

So close to preparations
For the next life
I wanted a kitchen you could fit a table in
I wanted to stop mispronouncing dólar as dolor

I wanted to write a book where I interviewed
César Vallejo’s family, and they said everything
You might say to me; I wanted to write a book

I wanted to sound out the words at my own speed,
I wanted to sound out, like I couldn’t see, a kind of
sonar for memory, see if the pink bedspread
was as real as the pink bedspread

Poem where the pink bedspread
Poem where I don’t say your name
Poem where you say I can’t speak
for you, and book where I say
I won’t publish the book then

I wanted a poem that could pay for my kitchen
A poem without detail, with room for all detail
I wanted a book as long as a life sentence

I wanted you to leave so I could write
I wanted you to leave so I could write a book about it
So I could remember you

∩

Andrew Judson Stoughton is the U.S. editor of New Mundo Press. He is the author of En Un Auto Arteriado, available from Not Nothing Press. You can find his work in Works and Days and Jacobin. He splits his time between Jackson Heights, Queens and Buenos Aires.