A Season in Desire
by
Eduardo Acevedo
Translated by Teresa M. Lorenz
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2008 Eduardo Acevedo
All rights reserved.
****
Contents
If I saw you walking down the street
arm in arm with someone else
I would think it was me.
Moreover, if you looked at him
with that awakening smile,
when your eyes decide on
the transparent green,
the reflection of your pupils,
they should be mine.
Amusing, passionate,
coincidental looks,
they are as beautiful and lively
as everything about you.
When you surrender them to the world
I am a correspondent observer.
But if I saw your loving eyes
wandering around here,
I would know they are shining in my direction.
So much time traveling together
has energized
the autonomy of our contours.
We don’t know each other by heart;
we know each other by heart
in the vertex, where it counts.
Therefore your surprises
do not hurt me.
Our love is so enduring
that we have no need
to impress each other.
And we impress each other
from time to time,
just for sheer pleasure.
Together in life
like a pair of shoes;
me, with your shadow
and mine following your footsteps.
Together and shuffled in the desire
in the tacit things,
in the complementarities,
in the acquired tastes.
If they see you walking down the street
arm in arm with someone,
it must be me.
I have traversed your body
countless times.
Blindly I identify
each valley and wave,
every inch of your skin.
Like a military strategist,
I have a map of your ticklish areas.
Of the zones that become ticklish
depending on how I explore them
and I must watch out...
Your thermal map is also
a well-known and dominated art.
I have learned to adjust your temperament
like a saxophone,
to get to know the warmth that you need.
Your fragrance and moistness
are such primitive signs
that I feel I am reading them in an unknown language.
The best-memorized musical score
are your breaking points,
those of abandonment
when you let yourself go.
The rhythm,
the tempo is fundamental.
That’s why I consult your energies,
your excited or romantic tone,
the time of day,
the position of the stars,
the flow of the tide
and even the flight of a mosquito
wanting to take advantage.
Countless times
I have traversed your body.
The announcements, the indications, the signs
have as many variations
as the openings in a chess game.
And it’s never the same.
The general features,
the games of position,
are more or less limited and familiar.
However, it’s never the same.
Between the sheets
I try to recognize
the factor,
the substance,
the element,
the vibration,
the inexhaustible source,
the tireless material,
the wind blowing through your fingers.
Countless times
I have traversed your body
and I don’t get bored with you.
It is like a miracle,
a given and blessed grace,
an offering received and accepted,
a new and renovated gift that you give me.
Her eyes are sapphire blue,
waterfall blue.
I remember her delicate figure
with a determined walk;
her blond hair leaving
a luminous trail like an overexposed photo.
All of that happened later.
Recognizing and observing her in detail
was a consequence
and not the beginning of the amazement,
of the inexpressible contact,
of the first touch heaping full of gifts.
Am I so sure about the exchange?
Conviction without a trace of doubt,
certainty;
like recognizing
an Eskimo in Tangier.
I was sitting down
to listen to the conference
when she appeared at the central corridor
extending her hand out to me
and disapproving my location with a shake of her head.
Hesitantly, I took her hand
and thus we went to the first row.
As if we had held hands
all our lives,
as if we knew of other times
that humidity and smoothness,
that pressure and adjustment,
that perfect concavity with her curvature,
that rhythm joining the beats,
that sliding of fingers during the farewell.
Later during the social event,
we drew near to each other
in the groups that are formed and broken
among greetings and farewells.
Having assimilated
the energy of her touch,
it seemed as if an angel
was walking through the hall.
My indolent look
finds the measurement of its disinterest
in some vaguely recognized eyes
that are accustomed to other faces.
Amused by the conversation
I slightly change my posture,
trying to repeat with ceremonial furtiveness
what I predict
two tables away.
There is no persistence or boldness.
I only unclearly demonstrate
the weak separation with the coincidental.
Resembling desire
stretched out in curiosity.
Small identification games
scrutinizing coincidences
and readiness
to reach the unknown,
which still doesn’t have a name.
Angelic girl
you come to me searching
without knowing fully
what you want.
Be careful,
because next time
I will illustrate the nature of your desire
and how it provokes mine.
Perhaps I will end up frightening you.
Unless you surprise me
and then I’ll be the frightened one.
Your steps proceed along a path
without rushing to find me.
Distracted,
I don’t arouse their attention.
Similar to mine;
they don’t have any expectations
nor anything disturbing to hide.
The time has not yet arrived
for you to change
the temperature of my world.
Or for something to begin hurting.
The only disturbing thing
is to not know how I found you.
So much anticipated happiness
makes me suspicious about it.
You are the chosen one
so that my dreams will follow you
and so that happiness will establish a new land
in your name.
You don’t know it yet,
but the looks are in favor
of complicity.
I still don’t recognize
your unforeseen figure
or your unmistakable
gestures.
But I have chosen you
so that you can choose to do
whatever you want with me.
You don’t have any idea of the gleaming power
and I don’t know why I’m giving it to you.
You don’t wonder yet
about my absence
and I already rolled the dice
on your fate.
My gastric juices will rest
and those who love me
will be thankful for the changing of seasons,
the lucky streak at work,
or that new fruit that makes me feel so good.
With the unaccustomed
tone of your name,
I smile for no reason
once again.
My candid smile
traversed the conversation
like a giraffe in the middle of the street.
With the curious look of the others
far from bothering me,
I enjoyed your intromission in my head.
My smile full of sounds and fragrances
is a waterfall of bad thoughts
moving along your neckline,
then rising, lukewarm
until it chafes your neck
and traps your evasive scent.
It’s been a while since I’ve had
a slight break in the tone of my voice,
a light wheeze at the wrong time
during daily chats.
But there in front of me
are your attentive eyes.
I seek an asymmetry,
an imperfection,
a defect,
a small, reassuring cross of the eyes.
But your crossed eyes
or your sleepy left eye,
turns out to be fatally
attractive and disturbing.
I am also driving faster;
taking stupid and unnecessary risks.
And I love it.
My beloved and trusted ones
went on vacation.
I don’t loathe them,
I don’t leave them aside,
I don’t forget them.
But I am in a state of grace
tied to your name
like a joker in the pack of cards
and like a master key
in the locks.
On the other hand, your loved ones
make you think too much.
And you are chained to anticipations,
to consequences.
All your coolness and spontaneity
fail to disguise
the weakness to notice your heart.
I am a southern man,
from the southern part of this continent,
of this world,
of this galaxy.
Instinctively southern.
Stubbornly southern in this space
of arbitrary directions.
And from time to time, I wonder what I am doing
in this hot tropic.
And at times I ask myself
what the hell am I doing in this world.
Perhaps you think it sounds exaggerated.
Perhaps it sounds heart-renderingly
exorbitant.
But I believe I came to meet you
and to excite your existence.
In a rainy afternoon like this,
signs of shipwreck, of loss and of remoteness
assault me.
Therefore I have the firm intent
of buying you a compass
so you can find me.
So that with the needle pointing northward,
you can seek me in the south.
Along the path of the heart.
My eyes are well shut
to your incidental defects
because I wouldn’t even notice
the prominent ones.
Enclosing the horizon of my beats
to the echoes that reflect your figure,
I walk like a blind man
guessing your next surprise
and my new disillusion.
Terrible and delicious creature,
you make me take in the air of life
in free fall.
My reservoirs of sanity
are humid with the tears
that you cause me
and at times that I borrow from you.
So many times I have postponed
my farewell
and every time
I feel like I’m going back
to spend a while
in the abyss near you.
In solidarity with the frauds,
I swear by the knob on my door
that this time
I’m not going to let you in.
And it’s going to be difficult to jump through the window
because I plan to leave it half-open.
Living with you
would be a complete disaster,
although I don’t see another way
of achieving happiness.
The little, insufficient wisdom
accumulated through the years,
points like a perfect compass
everywhere except to where you are,
while my clearer moments
carry you as my only true article.
There are no reasons or exams that resist
my stubbornness to love you.
I can’t say anything acceptable
in my defense,
or anything memorable in yours.
A stray love
fell to us from the sky,
a speeding
meteorite
crossing the upper layers
until getting trapped
in two mediocre hearts.
Some collect
positions of power
and others collect postage stamps.
There are those who collect
sensual experiences
or banking tranquility.
Nor is it strange to collect
trivialities and happiness
to forget a little bit
about who you are.
I, my dear,
collect defects,
succumbing to fears and abjections
that keep happening to me
and I believed myself to be immune at one time.
Above all, I try to collect
intimate moments,
delicate touches
and inexpressible nearness.
In this aspect,
you and I seem to be
like the rest of the world.
In this aspect,
the rest of the world
envied us for a while.
When all expectations cease,
nothing will console me.
I will not have the impulse of hate,
nor near or remote hope.
Every day the sun will rise
in the same place
but it will be an unknown
and foreign day,
amnesic,
resigned to desire.
Not aspiring to anything.
Not dreaming of anything.
Today I have the sadness
of those who renounce
what they want.
I trapped the distorted will
of those who are suicidal
knowing that tomorrow
will be the first
of the rest of my days
without you.
I will have to forget you
and continue living
as I lived before meeting you.
Passing under a ladder,
renting a black cat
and trusting that a brick
will fall on my head.
I will have to change
my heartbeat,
buy perfumes that deceive
the reminder of your scent
and break the habit of thinking about you.
Thinking about you in any way,
because all the ways
keep retaining your painful absence.
A you-proof shield,
a temporary lobotomy,
an irreparable loss,
a new love,
Whatever…!
Something that is untying from my side
the knot that is no longer there.
I will have to forget you
and I don’t know how.
I will have to forget you
and continue living.
It wasn’t a coincidence that we met each other
while leaving to go to our galaxies.
Soon we will forget it all,
except perhaps the sketch
with which I will recognize you
no matter the time or place.
The destiny weaver revised
my gallery of events,
trying to thread the plots
in the new world,
which will provide more chances for my human factor.
When reaching you, he couldn’t avoid
glimpsing up
and with a compassionate smile,
inviting me to talk.
How can I explain, my dear,
our ability to complicate the simplest things?
How can I tell him about my love,
about our essential incompatibilities?
How can I tell him about our love
which is suitable without each other?
That we are moderate,
very moderate,
risk-takers.
But I didn’t need to tell him
of the unexpected nights,
when I remained awake
with tears warming my cheeks.
Or about the disturbing moments
when I repeat your name
in a pacifying prayer.
And he knows that I guess,
that I sense
our remote destiny.
That I have always loved you,
since the first fruitless hours
when my desire sought you.
That I love you in spite of everything,
without reason,
with the odds against us,
above all,
like the first day.
And he also knows, my love,
that I don’t want to wait another thousand years
to see you again.
Hence his smile was compassionate
upon pressing my button
to start off towards Alpha Centauri.
You’re leaving
and you are leaving me with little.
You’re leaving
and time extends its sighs
and clouds mist the days
with melancholy.
You’re leaving without me yet having tamed
your absence.
You’re inconveniently leaving
without notifying my indifference.
You’re leaving with little desire
while mine is attached to your waist.
You’re leaving, assimilating into your destiny
while I do not detach myself from your skin.
You’re leaving, taking my gaze with you.
You’re leaving on a plane,
but nothing happens to planes
when I bless your name.
You should take a shipwrecked boat
that lies you on the sand
and in a bottle of rum
send me a rescue note.
Don’t forget me,
for you are the last trace
of my wandering throughout this world.
I’m fading
from your heart and from your memory.
Don’t forget me
like we forget all of our loved ones.
Engrave me in your mind next to
your childhood memories,
reserving a place for my smile.
You need to learn
where South is located in your bed,
so that in the drowsiness of waking up,
my love won’t come to you sideways.
And put out the candles that are blowing softly,
so that the smoke set against the clear night
announces my presence.
If you notice that things get difficult,
that in spite of your effort
you begin to lose me,
rub a lamp with oil and essence
wishing for my impossibility
to forget you.
Recalling the ancient peoples
I have invoked the gods of Olympus
and they have not answered me.
Through ancient Assyria
and the immemorial Ganges,
I have looked back with the same result.
I have not insisted
on harmonious geometric forms
purifying the colors,
or on precise constellations
adorning the firmament.
I have not insisted
on being interested in this world
or on venturing in other, more remote, ones,
with the fervor
that you inspire in me.
There in Olympus
they notice it immediately.
Facing every new exploration
I promptly stop
without a little inner voice
controlling me.
I don’t know with which thermometer
I calculate in advance
that even though I’m doing very well
it won’t be enough.
I even think
that I must have developed
some new ability
to not hurt.
Since I don’t trust
my sudden kindness,
I suspect, rather,
loyalty to your memory,
where already nothing
seems to be enough.
She is already thinking about someone else,
I continue thinking about her
and you are thinking about me.
You always think about me,
I still think about her
more than I think about you
and she at times thinks about me. I suppose.
Nobody guides
your heart,
but I wouldn’t change your love,
which is clearer and deeper
than mine,
for anything.
Not even for her.
You aren’t the prettiest girl on this planet
but you are close to it.
There is nothing on you that is out of place
or that I would like to change about you.
And I’m saying it for the both of us,
so that my superficiality
harmonizes with your mischief.
You aren’t the most intelligent girl in the neighborhood
but your hunches for essential things,
make me think
that you ride on a broom.
Besides, wisdom
wouldn’t mesh at all
with your absent-minded innocence.
You aren’t the most understanding girl
when you wake up on the wrong foot,
but still the same, you carry on your shoulder
the bag full of my defects.
And it’s a big bag.
You don’t dream all of my dreams
nor do you manage to penetrate
the nostalgia of my silence,
but you are the best remedy
to blur my melancholy,
diluting it in tenderness.
You fail to turn every day of mine
into a party,
perhaps to make me notice the difference
between your absence
and the indifferent radiance I elicit
on my off days.
You aren’t the best companion
in this world,
but at times, I believe you are close to it.
With foolishness on my shoulders,
I feel an immense happiness
of having you by my side.
Even if I try to explain it,
you wouldn’t believe it.
And I understand,
because it would be like trying to find
King Arthur’s court
on the outskirts of Camelot.
These are only small details
scattered throughout time.
Like perspiring in green
and leaving the evidence
on the collar of my shirt.
Or that bone tumor
that a surgeon discovers
when fixing something else.
Or confusing front with back
and left with right.
Small deviations
that are better concealed
when establishing my origin in lands
far south on this planet.
Without directly known
relatives,
or childhood friends,
nor the exact time of birth,
or a hospital that can certify it.
And it surprises you
that you can forgive in me
what you haven’t been able to forgive in others.
And it surprises you
that you keep needing me.
And it surprises you
to see me adorable for no reason.
But it shouldn’t surprise you
if you recall the way I looked at you…
staring through you, looking out for your destiny.
When things
have to do with me,
you can consider it to be
a fine schizophrenia
or that I am not from this planet.